NABTC Agenda for Action 2010; Join the Coalition for Advocacy Activities in DC or at Home

April 22, 2010

The members of the North American Brain Tumor Coalition will be in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, May 4, to meet with their Senators and Representatives. During those important Congressional visits, the Coalition advocates will be pressing Congress to take several important actions. First, the NABTC will advocate an increase in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to a level of $35 billion in fiscal year 2011. Second, the Coalition will urge Congress to engage in active oversight of implementation of health reform, to guarantee that the promise of the new health care program is realized. Third, the Coalition will ask for champions for a brain tumor awareness resolution, aimed at increasing lawmaker and public awareness of (more...)

Posted in Action Items, Advocacy Positions, Brain Tumor Action Week, Headlines

Register NOW for Brain Tumor Action Week!

April 2, 2010

Please join the North American Brain Tumor Coalition and its friends in Washington, D.C. for Brain Tumor Action Week. On Monday, May 3, we will hold a full-day education day. On Tuesday, May 4, we will make visits to Members of Congress.

Join your friends in the brain tumor community in pressing for federal funding for brain tumor research and implementation of health reform to help uninsured brain tumor patients.

To register, please use the form at http://www.nabraintumor.org/registration10.html.

Posted in Action Items, Brain Tumor Action Week, General News, Headlines

Register Now! Brain Tumor Action Week in DC on May 3 and 4

March 16, 2010

Please join the North American Brain Tumor Coalition and its friends for Brain Tumor Action Week in Washington, D.C. On Monday, May 3, the Coalition invites you to an education day, featuring a program focusing on brain tumor research and care and including training for advocacy visits to Congress. On Tuesday, May 4, advocates will meet with their Representatives and Senators to discuss policy issues of importance to the brain tumor community.

We’ll be pressing Congress to fund the National Institutes of Health generously, continue a Peer-Reviewed Cancer Research Program at the Department of Defense that supports pediatric brain tumor research, and ensure a strong and coordinated brain tumor research program at the National Cancer Institute and National Institute (more...)

Posted in Brain Tumor Action Week, Headlines

NABTC Presses for More Funds for NIH and for a Restoration of Funding for the Adult Brain Tumor Consortium

April 22, 2009

President Obama and Congress provided a major boost to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the biomedical researchers who depend on NIH funding by including in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), or stimulus package, more than $10 billion for NIH. This funding includes contruction funds for NIH and construction funds for extramural institutions along with money for biomedical research and comparative effectiveness research. Of the $10 billion total, approximately $8.2 billion will be distributed in grants to extramural researchers.

The NABTC applauds this action, which comes after four years of virtually static funding for NIH. During this period of time, research budgets were cut and new projects were slowed or stalled. Although the stimulus (more...)

Posted in Action Items, Advocacy Positions, Brain Tumor Action Week, Brain Tumor Research

NABTC Urges Action to End Medicare Waiting Period; Coalition Fighting for Reform Includes 90 Leading Organizations

April 22, 2009

The North American Brain Tumor Coalition joins 90 other leading health care organizations in seeking the elimination of the Medicare Waiting Period for those receiving Social Security Disability benefits. Under the current Medicare rules, individuals must wait two years after they begin to receive Social Security Disability payments before they may receive health care through Medicare. This policy has been in effect since Medicare was expanded in 1972 to provide benefits to the disabled, and year in and year out the policy denies disabled individuals who desperately need health care the ability to receive that care through Medicare for two long years. Tragically, some disabled Americans die while they are waiting for Medicare benefits.

The NABTC has (more...)

Posted in Action Items, Advocacy Positions, Brain Tumor Action Week

Brain Tumor Care and Cures Act of 2009: An Advocates’ Plan for Enhancing Brain Tumor Treatments

April 22, 2009

The North American Brain Tumor Coalition seeks to advance the Brain Tumor Care and Cures Act, a draft bill that would authorize programs and activities to improve brain tumor treatments. NABTC advocates include individuals with brain tumors, family members and friends of those diagnosed with brain tumors, caregivers, and physicians, nurses, and basic researchers. The experience of these advocates related to brain tumors is broad and deep, and they relied on this experience in drafting the Brain Tumor Care and Cures Act.

The bill includes initiatives that brain tumor advocates believe will accelerate the development of new brain tumor treatments and improve access to care by brain tumor patients. The brain tumor research task is so (more...)

Posted in Action Items, Advocacy Positions, Brain Tumor Action Week, Brain Tumor Research

Brain Tumor Advocacy Packet — An Agenda for Improving Brain Tumor Treatments

April 15, 2009

NABTC members and friends are going to observe Brain Tumor Awareness Month of May 2009 by promoting an aggressive and ambitious agenda for brain tumor research and care.

Advocates are encouraged to contact their elected officials and to ask them to help the brain tumor community advance several important initiatives. The internet and email have transformed your ability to speak to your Senators and Representatives, which means that brain tumor advocates can be as effective at home as they can be in Washington, D.C.

Senators and Representatives generally spend weekends and Congressional recess periods in their home districts and states, which means that there is a ready option of meeting with your elected officials when they are at home. (more...)

Posted in Action Items, Advocacy Positions, Brain Tumor Action Week

Brain Tumor Policy Agenda for 2009: Join Us in Fight for Better Brain Tumor Treatments

April 15, 2009

The North American Brain Tumor Coalition will dedicate its activities during May 2009, Brain Tumor Awareness Month, to Congressional action on the Brain Tumor Policy Agenda for 2009.

The time for action is now to improve brain tumor treatments and given those who are diagnosed with brain tumors a chance of a longer and better life. NABTC proposes concrete policy actions to ensure that brain tumor patients suffer no hurdle in receiving Medicare benefits as well as a range of actions that will intensify and reinvigorate the federal brain tumor research effort.

The Brain Tumor Policy Agenda for 2009 is outlined in brief in the attached document. 2009-brain-tumor-policy-agenda

Posted in Action Items, Advocacy Positions, Brain Tumor Action Week

National Brain Tumor Awareness Month Resolution

April 28, 2008

Brain tumor advocates are dedicated to increasing awareness of brain tumors, because educating the public and policy-makers about brain tumors is a necessary first step in advancing public policy efforts that will improve treatment for brain tumors. The North American Brain Tumor Coalition applauds Representative Jan Schakowsky for her leadership in introducing H. Res. 1124, a resolution that would declare May “National Brain Tumor Awareness Month.”

We are asking each and every Member of the House of Representatives to join as a cosponsor of H. Res. 1124. Please be sure to make this “ask” when you meet with your Representative.

For more information about this awareness effort, please see National Brain Tumor Awareness (more...)

Posted in Action Items, Advocacy Positions, Brain Tumor Action Week

Ending the Medicare Waiting Period Act

April 28, 2008

During visits to Capitol Hill on May 6 and beyond, brain tumor advocates will be asking their Senators and Representatives to cosponsor the Ending the Medicare Disability Waiting Period. This legislation would end the waiting period for those with life-threatening illnesses and phase out the waiting period for all others (those on Social Security Disability who are not considered to have life-threatening illnesses) over a period of ten years. During that ten-year period, the waiting period would be reduced incrementally.

The Senate version of the Ending the Medicare Waiting Period Act was introduced as S. 2102 by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and the House version was introduced as H.R. 154 by Representative Gene Green (D-TX). (more...)

Posted in Advocacy Positions, Brain Tumor Action Week