Hill Day 2015
ATS Vice President David Gozal, MD; ATS Immediate Past President, Patricia Finn, MD; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); Director of Advocacy and Awareness at Pulmonary Hypertension Association, Katie Kroner; Angela Wang, MD; ATS President-Elect Atul Malhotra, MD
Rep. Dave Trott (R-MI-11); Samya Nasr, MD; ATS Secretary-Treasurer Marc Moss, MD; Carolyn Welsh, MD; ATS PAR member Jack Kelly
Stewart Sweet, MD; Benjamin Kopp, MD; Taryn Dorfman, legislative assistant to Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH-15); ATS PAR Chair Greg Porta; Nuala Moore-Lynch; ATS President Thomas Ferkol, MD
Tim Girard, MD; ATS PAR member Teresa Barnes; Zissis Chroneos, MD; Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-PA), Sarah Lyons, MD; Brian Carlin, MD
ATS PAR member Debbie Drell; Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI); Christine Fukui, MD; George Parides, MD; Dale Dirks, president at Health and Medicine Counsel of Washington
ATS Executive Director Stephen Crane; Diane Stover, MD; Courtney White; Robin Gross, MD; Jag Sunderram, MD; ATS PAR member Donna Appell
ATS President Thomas Ferkol, MD; Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO-02); Stewart Sweet, MD
Samya Nasr, MD; Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI)
ATS PAR member Debbie Drell; Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA); George Parides, MD; Christine Fukui, MD
Previous Next
ATS members from around the country came to Washington, DC, on Thursday, March 19, 2015, to speak with members of Congress and their staffs to advocate for issues of importance to the ATS. More than 40 ATS members and patients with lung disease participated in the event. The key issues covered included:
- Supporting NIH Funding
- Supporting a fix to the Medicare sustainable growth rate (SGR)
- Supporting TB control programs
- Addressing antibiotic resistance
- Opposing legislation to exempt cigars from FDA regulation
The timing of the ATS Hill Day was fortuitous in that bipartisan legislation to fix SGR was introduced the same day that ATS members were in Washington DC. ATS members shared with Congress patient stories on how research is bringing new hope and new cures to patients with lung disease. ATS members also informed Congress that TB and antibiotic resistance continues to be a public health threat around the world, that cigars are bad for public health—especially fruit-flavored cigars that are being marketed to kids—and that Congress’s inability to fix SGR is a real problem for physicians.