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Now is the time to contact your Senators and Representatives in support of funding for the Sickle Cell Treatment Act!
Last year ASH successfully sought the passage of the Sickle Cell Treatment Act. This new law focuses on providing federal reimbursement for education and other services related to the prevention and treatment of sickle cell disease (SCD), including a grant program for 40 health centers nationwide. We were grateful that Congress provided $200,000 in FY 2005 to establish a demonstration program and a national coordinating center to collect, monitor and distribute information on best practices.
On November 17, the House of Representatives rejected the fiscal year (FY) 2006 Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services (HHS), and Education (Labor-HHS) appropriations bill (HR 3010) by a 209-222 vote.
With this legislation defeated, the next step in the process will be to reconvene the Labor-HHS House-Senate Conference Committee and develop a bill that is acceptable to both chambers of Congress. Sickle Cell Disease advocates now have additional opportunity to contact their Senators and Representatives to strengthen support for FY 2006 funding of the Sickle Cell Treatment Act.
It is critical that you contact your Senators and Representatives as the FY 2006 funding bill is discussed in the House-Senate Conference Committee. You should strongly urge your Senators and Representatives to support the Senate number of $2 million for the Sickle Cell Treatment Act in FY 2006, since the House eliminated funding for this program in its FY 2006 bill.
Your effort will only take a minute, but will help ASH's campaign to make this funding a reality.
ASH urges its members to e-mail the letter below to their Senators and Representatives. The letter below can be sent as is, but we strongly encourage you to personalize the message. We also encourage you to forward this email to your colleagues that are interested in supporting high-quality sickle cell disease care.
Please direct any questions to ASH Government Affairs Manager Jeff Coughlin at (202) 776-0544 or jcoughlin@hematology.org.
If you would like to view details on this alert, please visit here.
