What’s Up with Congress and Health Policy?

Congress has the power to improve patients’ access to affordable and transparent care. That’s why it’s important for patients to know which lawmakers support legislation that positively impacts patients across the country.

To make this information accessible, Patients Rising Now created a beta 117th Congress Advocacy Scorecard.

This inaugural report shows how many bills each chamber considered that would impact patients, and it tested whether lawmakers had opportunities to support pro-patient legislation or Dear Colleague letters.

Spoiler alert: because Congress has been only voting on sweeping gigantic legislative packages, a lot of pro-patient policy never even made it to the floor for votes, and Members of Congress didn’t have enough bills to consider for our report card.

We will be watching this trend and working on the Hill to make Members get the opportunity to vote on pro-patient policy. Next year with a more comprehensive scoring system, Members of Congress will also be notified when Patients Rising Now will be watching and grading specific votes that affect patients.  

Hosts: 

Terry Wilcox, CEO, Patients Rising

Dr. Robert Goldberg, “Dr. Bob,” Co-Founder and Vice President of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest

Guests:

Rachel Derby, Executive Director of Patients Rising Now

Diane Talbert, Patient Correspondent and Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis Patient Advocate

Links: 

117th Congress Advocacy Scorecard

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The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the guest(s)/ author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of Patients Rising.