Exercise and Fitness For All Act

Support H.R. 5603 the Access to Telehealth Services for Opioid Use Disorders Act. Sent a letter to ACL/HHS related to concerns about community living remarks by ACL and the disability community. Met with ACL several times to discuss community living issues including access to CRT, our support for the Disability Integration Act, S. 910/HR. 2472, competitive integrated employment and employment for people with disabilities in the healthcare sector and accessible medical diagnostic equipment. Support H.R. 6042 and HR. 5912 which amend Title XIX of the Social Security Act, to delay the reduction in Federal medical assistance percentage for Medicaid personal care services furnished without an electronic visit verification system. Accessible Exercise Equipment United Spinal helped draft and provide comments to a former Access Board member to a letter to Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) urging her to introduce legislation, similar to HR 5541/S. 2888, 113th Congress - Exercise and Fitness For All Act that you co-sponsored in 2014, that would authorize the Access Board to issue guidelines specifying the number and types of accessible exercise equipment required. It also provides for a tax credit for a small business purchasing accessible exercise equipment. Medical Expense Coalition United Spinal has been advocating to increase and expand the medical expense deduction and so we signed onto a letter to Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Rob Portman (R-OH) who have introduced medical expense provisions in the past,as well as to the House of Representatives. For the approximately 8.8 million Americans who annually take this deduction, it provides important tax relief which helps offset the costs of acute and chronic medical conditions for older Americans, children, pregnant women and other adults as well as the costs associated with long term care and assisted living. Medical expenses that qualify for this deduction can include amounts paid for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, equipment, qualified long-term care services costs as well as long term care insurance premiums. Families across the country with high health care costs face a constant stream of deductibles and high co-pays, and also pay out-of-pocket for various services and devices that enable the individual to live a productive life in the community. Opposed move of NIDILRR from ACL included in House and Senate appropriations committee language. United Spinal signed onto a Health IT Now Coalition letter to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Office of the Inspector General, both at the Department of Health and Human Services to follow up on regulatory implementation issues. Section 4004 of 21st Century Cures Act, which was signed into law in December 2016, requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to prevent information blocking and to also identify reasonable and necessary activities that do not constitute information blocking. Further, the law requires the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) to implement a standardized process for the public to submit reports on claims of health information technology products or developers of such products not being interoperable or resulting in information blocking and actions that result in information blocking. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has enforcement authority over vendors and providers who are found to engage in information blocking. United Spinal Association signed onto a thank you letter to Congress for appropriating $5million per year for 4 years for the National Neurological Conditions Surveillance System in 2018 appropriations.