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:

Grant Winning Students Hit The Hill

3 Athletic Training Students from FWATA schools joined 10 certified FWATA members to "Hit-the-Hill" in Washington DC. From left to right, Christina Orozco from Fresno State, Adam Cady from Cal State Fullerton and Gina Biviano from Chapman University spent 3 days in our nations capital seeing the sites, sitting in on a few NATA committee meetings, and meeting with legislators on Capital Hill to discuss HR 1846. Their trip was sponsored by a grant from the FWATA Governmental Affairs Committee. They will be speaking about their experience at the student symposium at the FWATA Annual Meeting in Burlingame.

Federal Bill

Work continues to try to get HR1876, The
Medicare Access to Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
Services Improvement Act. The NATA has been working very
hard on our behalf and members from throughout the country
have been instrumental in helping us make strides in this effort.
Federal Hit the Hill Day is Monday February 25. Twelve
members from our district, including three Athletic Training
Students who were awarded a grant to participate (Gina Biviano
from Chapman College, Adam Cady from Cal State Fullerton
and Christina Orozco from Fresno State), will be visiting our
federal legislators to raise awareness and support of athletic
training and the Medicare Access to Physical Medicine and
Rehabilitation Services Improvement Act. The students will
also be presenting at the FWATA meeting about their experiences

State Activities

All three states have been active in the planning or introduction of bills.

• California’s registration bill was vetoed again. They
  are considering sponsoring a bill that would improve
  safety for high school athletes. Look for a possible hit
  the hill day later in the spring.
• In Hawaii, they are continuing to work on regulation
• The Nevada State Board of Athletic training is
  currently developing language for the regulation of the
  fitness profession. This final version is due in January
  2009.

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