Washington Days, NHF’s annual grassroots advocacy day on Capitol Hill, will take place from Wednesday, March 7 until Friday, March 9th, 2012. This is your opportunity to learn about key legislative issues affecting the bleeding disorders community. More importantly, it’s a chance for you to tell your own story to our elected representatives and their staff members, helping them understand your genuine needs and concerns. Past Washington Days participants have described it as an empowering experience they will never forget. It's important that we send a strong group from across the New York City area to make sure our voice is heard!
On December 16, 2011 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a bulletin outlining proposed policies on how states will implement aspects of healthcare reform, also known as the Affordable Care Act. This important Federal legislation is designed to ensure that all Americans will have access to quality, affordable health insurance. Some provisions of the legislation have already taken effect and the rest are scheduled to be in place by 2014. The new bulletin addresses the issue of what states will need to do to ensure that insurance plans that will be offered to consumers and small business will cover “essential health benefits.” HHS had already established a list of broad essential benefit categories which include prescription drugs, physician services, emergency services, mental health services, chronic disease management and a number of others.
As reported by the New York Times on December 10th and by a wide variety of other media outlets, medical researchers in Britain have successfully used gene therapy to treat six individuals with Factor IX deficiency also known as hemophilia B. The results represent a major advance not only in the treatment of hemophilia but also in the field of gene therapy which has experienced many setbacks and false starts over the last twenty years.