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eNewsletter - July 2, 2009
Fourth of July and health care reform
Thanks to the thousands of people who participated in the National Call-in Day on June 17th! We need your continued help to expand opportunities for people to get the help that they need to recover from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Members of Congress are back home for the July 4th recess, a great time to be in touch with your Representative and Senators about the need to expand opportunities for recovery as part of health care reform.
Reform of the national healthcare system represents a unique opportunity to improve opportunities for people to recover from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. Faces & Voices of Recovery and other organizations from the alcohol and other drug prevention, treatment and recovery communities have joined with allies from the mental health community to work to ensure that the health responses to addiction and mental illness are included in any national healthcare reform proposals considered by Congress and the Obama Administration.
Because of how Congress is organized and how health-related issues affect so many different parts of our economy, there are five Congressional Committees that are part of the debate. In the Senate, they are the Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committees. In the House, they are the Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means and Education and Labor committees. They have started to draft legislation and the process is moving forward quickly.
Committee votes on the draft healthcare reform bills are expected in July and Congressional leadership is hoping to schedule House and Senate votes on final bills before members of Congress go home in August.
So far, all of the draft healthcare bills or proposals include some mention of addiction and mental health. However, the serious discussions are just getting underway and strong advocacy will be needed to make sure that the full continuum of addiction and mental illness services are included and will be available for people seeking recovery, just like any other health condition.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
- Call or email your US Senators and Representative today and ask them to make sure that addiction and mental illness prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and recovery supports are fully and equitably included in national healthcare reform.
- Find out where your elected officials are going to be over the 4th of July holiday – many are attending parades, fireworks and other community events – and meet up with them to talk about recovery in your community and let them know that investing in recovery as part of health care reform make sense because it will improve the quality of life for millions of Americans and dramatically reduce health care costs.