The Governmental Affairs Committee

The members of your governmental affairs committee have been busy at both the national and state level to try to provide you with the best possible conditions with which to practice athletic training. Highlights include:

Fall 2008

Legislative sessions have essentially ended at the state and federal levels. While no major victories were scored in FWATA or in the US congress, there was a lot of activity at both levels and several other states achieved had landmark bills passed. I think we gained momentum in a number of ways in all three states in the district as well as on the national level as we head into the 2009 sessions.

At the federal level, H.R. 1846, the Medicare Access to Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Services Improvement Act was not passed, but hundreds of athletic trainers “hit the hill” in support of this bill and educated their legislators on about athletic training. A number of co-sponsors signed on to the bill and commitments have been made to continue their support when the bill is reintroduced next session.

The California Athletic Trainer’s Association was asked to co-sponsor a bill advocating the mandatory use of mouth guards in some specific sports. While the bill never made it to the governor’s desk, the process allowed the CATA to reach more legislators with the information about athletic trainers. Look for the CATA to be involved in one or more bills next year. Hawaii was also active legislatively and a bill was introduced asking for a sunrise review of the profession of athletic training, the first step in the process for gaining statutory regulation. The bill did not move forward but they will continue to work toward passing this legislation.

Nevada has been investigating the feasibility of a bill mandating athletic trainers in high schools.

The common denominator in the success of any of these bills will be your participation. When you receive calls to write a letter, or call a legislator, in support of a bill, please take a few minutes to advance your profession.

Political Action Committees (PACs)

As a reminder, a political action committee is a private group, organized to elect or defeat government officials or to promote legislation. This is primarily done by donating funds to candidates and causes. Both California and the NATA have PACs. Please donate as you are able. Any amount can be helpful. If every California ATC donated $5.00 we could triple the size of that PAC. If every NATA member donated the equivalent of one Starbucks a month, the NATAPAC could raise nearly 2 million dollars.

For more information or to make a donation:

CATAPAC

Contact Robbie Bowers treasurer at

pactreasurer@cata-usa.org

NATAPAC

www.natapac.org

 

Contact me if you have any questions or have input regarding any of these issues.

Thank you,

Michael Chisar, ATC MPT