After weeks of no news or not-so-good news, I have THREE positive developments to share.
(1) The House late Wednesday passed its version of the Health and Human Services budget bill. I am happy to report they restored funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs, going from $0 to $2.8 million!
The bill is headed to a conference committee, where differences will be ironed out. But because both chambers have now passed bills with AT LEAST the same amount of funding as this year, we are hopeful we will see an increase in funding for these critical programs for the next fiscal year.
We sent out some sample letters to the editor on this issue this week. Letters in local newspapers are read closely by legislators. If you are interested in submitting a letter to your paper, contact Cassandra Furlong at cassie.furlong@cancer.org.
(2) In that same bill, the House agreed with the Senate that the state should help IowaCare cancer patients receiving treatment at the University of Iowa Hospitals pay for their lodging costs if no other option exists. The Senate allocated $200,000 for this; the House did not put a cap on the amount. We are quite hopeful now that we will receive funding for this critical need.
(3) And finally, whether or not our K-12 tobacco-nicotine-free schools language will remain in the education reform bill and become law is now up to the conference committee negotiating differences between the House and Senate on the bill. We sent out an Action Alert on this yesterday. If you have not had a chance to respond, please do so now. If the 10 legislators on the conference committee get hundreds of requests to include this, it will be hard to ignore!
The question on everyone`s mind is when the Legislature will adjourn since the 100th day, the day their expense money ended, was Tuesday. Speculation runs rampant. I can tell you they still have quite a bit of work to do, but how fast they get it done depends on how badly they want to end the session. We will keep you posted, so stay tuned!
And as always, feel free to contact me directly with any questions or concerns - peggy.huppert@cancer.org.
