Sunday, March 21, 2010

Heath Care - SA to DC Federal Agenda

While Congress and the Senate discuss what will happen with health care in our nation, the health care issue team from San Antonio have brought several key topics that we plan to discuss while we are on Capitol Hill.

The SA to DC Health Care team is led by Dr. Brian Herman, Vice President for research and Professor, Cellular and Structural Biology, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio.

Dr. Herman, joined by others representing the interestes of our health care industry in San Antonio are first focused on appropriately implementing the health care reform coming from our lawmakers.

Next, our leaders will give their support for the implementation of Health Information Technology to improve the efficiency of health care delivery, they will support the extension of enhanced Federal Medical Assistance Percentages used to determine the amount of federal matching funds for state Medicaid expenditures and the delegation will ask for our legislators' support in finding a permanent fix for the Sustainable Growth Rate formula.

Next, the delegation will ask for increased funding for Health Resources and Services Administration's Title VII Fiscal Year 2011 (FY11) Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Bill, which is a $330 million investment that provides grants to educational institutions to train primary health care professionals to assist the underserved and to address the nation's health workforce shortage.

Another critical need in San Antonio is for more nurses, and nursing education. Therefore, the delegation will ask our legislators to increase funding for Nursing Workforce Development programs administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration under Title VII of the Public Health Service Act.

As with all positions on these topics, these priorities for health care were developed through extensive discussion that came from members of The Chamber's Health Care Committee. This committee has representatives from our hospitals, educational institutions, research organizations, bioscience companies and others who are impacted by and related to the health care industry.

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