Another legislative session is in the books. All in all – a solid legislative session with some pretty significant public health policy gains. The main areas where progress was made were in access to care, maternal and child health, assurance and licensure and injury prevention.
There were several bills that didn’t progress which would have been a public health benefit and several really good ideas which never even got a hearing- so there were missed opportunities- but overall a solid B+ session I’d say.
We had lots of help with our advocacy efforts this year. Annissa Biggane and Timothy Giblin worked hard each and every week tracking bills, doing triage, ferreting out schedules, and writing risk/benefit analyses.
Eddie Sissions carried a lot of water as usual. She has great insight and a keen ability to figure out the nuances of session and figuring out “how the water flows”. Also a big help were our cadre of folks that called in to our bi weekly calls and strategy sessions.
The real key to our advocacy success is you – our membership. The relationships you make with our elected officials and your focused advocacy efforts are super important to our success at influencing public policy. Thank you all and well done this year!
I put together a Powerpoint summary of the 2019 legislative session to help y’all digest what happened this year. I’ve got links on the pages that’ll drive you to the actual bills. Take a look. BTW- if you open the link with an Apple product like an iPad- the PowerPoint will look weird and unprofessional- so open it on a laptop and in PowerPoint.