Take Action!

Senator Blanche Lincoln recently introduced, “Increased Student Achievement Through Increased Student Support Act (S. 3364),” a bill that will have a tremendous impact on the lives of children by creating a better trained and prepared school social work workforce to address the psychosocial and emotional issues that can impede educational performance. Our nation currently faces a serious shortage of qualified school-employed professionals, putting students with issues that interfere with learning at greater risk for school failure.

Its companion bill, H.R. 6654, introduced by Representative Towns, has over 40 co-sponsors. We need your help to get both of these bills passed. The “Increased Student Achievement through Increased Student Support Act” seeks to address this shortage. It creates a federal grant program designed to increase the number of school social workers, school counselors, and school psychologists serving low-income local educational agencies (LEAs) by creating a pipeline between institutions of higher education and low-income school districts. Institutions of higher education with graduate training programs in school social work, school counseling, and school psychology that develop collaborative training and placement partnerships with LEA’s will be eligible to apply for federal grant funds to hire and pay participating graduates to work in those schools. Program participants who remain employed in a low-income school setting for a minimum of five years will be eligible for loan forgiveness. By expanding the number of school social workers in low-income, high-need schools, we can improve the school and life success for students throughout the country.

Action Needed: Please contact your Senator and urge them to join their colleagues, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY), Thad Cochran (MS) and Robert Menendez (NJ) as co-sponsors of the “Increased Student Achievement through Increased Student Support Act”. Let them know that you are a social worker who is committed to improving the lives of our nation’s children and you look forward to passage of this important legislation. Thanks for your advocacy. Nancy McFall Jean, MSW NASW Lobbyist

Take Action!

A crucial House floor vote on Medicare legislation is expected tomorrow, Tuesday, June 24th. Email your Representative now, urging them to support HR. 6331 on the floor. Send the message below to support passage of this important bill for clinical social workers. Simply enter your zip code and send this preformed letter.

Message: I am writing as a constituent, professional social worker, and member of the National Association of Social Workers. I urge you to support passage of the Medicare Bill (HR. 6331). This bill includes much-needed adjustments to ensure Medicare beneficiaries have access to high-quality mental health care. The bill is especially important for the Medicare beneficiaries I serve, as it restores funding for clinical social work payments cut in 2007. This cut has placed the Medicare mental health benefit at risk and addressing it must be a top priority in any Medicare legislation the House passes. I also am pleased the bill finally treats mental health equal to other medical benefits and provides Medicare coinsurance parity and halts the scheduled 10.6% cut for all Part B provider payments. Please vote to pass H.R. 6331. It will make a real difference for the beneficiaries I serve.

Background: The House Medicare bill, also known as the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, (HR. 6331) includes important provisions for clinical social workers, including a rate increase for clinical social work services cut in 2007. Clinical social worker rates would increase for psychotherapy and related services by 5% ($45 million) for 18 months from July 1, 2008 through December 31, 2009, above the rate given to other medical services. Given strong pressure from the White House to narrow the bill, this is a huge victory for clinical social workers and psychologists who have worked to restore psychotherapy rates in Medicare. In addition, the House and Senate bills contain the Medicare coinsurance parity provision, reducing beneficiaries’ copayments by 5% per year from 50% in 2009 to 20% in 2014 - at full parity with medical and surgical benefits. This is a legislative goal long sought by NASW. This year’s Medicare package is designed primarily to halt the scheduled 10.6% cut in all Part B provider payment rates. Both the House and Senate bills (HR. 6331/S. 3101) would postpone the cut for 18 months beginning July 1, 2008 and increase payments for all providers by 1.1% for 2009, including clinical social workers participating in Part B. In addition to the 1.1% increase in 2009, clinical social workers would receive an increase of 5% (effective July 1, 2008) above those of other providers, if this bill passes.

The House bill, H.R. 6331, is based on the Baucus/Snowe Medicare bill, S. 3101, which was debated on the Senate Floor, but failed to win enough votes for passage on June 12. The Senate is now behind closed doors renegotiating its bill.

A Piece is Missing: Unfortunately, neither the House nor Senate bills include language sought by NASW permitting clinical social workers to bill separately for services to Medicare Part A nursing home residents (Clinical Social Work Medicare Equity Act, S.1212). This provision was included in the earlier House Medicare package (HR. 3162) and NASW is still working to get Senator Baucus to add it to his bill in the Senate. Over 3,000 of you have sent over 7,000 messages to your Senators advocating for this inclusion. Senators still need to hear from you to add the Mikulski bill (S.1212) to S.3102, so if you have not already sent a message, do so now. (link to last week’s alert) For background on legislative activity last year, see NASW’s website: NASW Medicare Alert.

Overview

On April 19, 2007 the D.C. Voting Rights Act (H.R.1905) passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 241-177. This is the first time in a generation that the House has passed a bill that works toward bringing voting representation to the 550,000 Americans living in our Nation’s Capital. Meanwhile, on May 1, 2007 Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT.) and Bob Bennett (R-UT.), introduced the D.C. House Voting Rights Act (S.1257) in the Senate. On June 13, 2007 S.1257 passed in the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs with bipartisan support, by a vote of 9-1. With enhanced bipartisan support, S.1257 has enormous momentum and unequivocal majority support from Democrats and Republicans in the Senate. In spite of the Senate majority, 60 votes are required to avoid a filibuster. Historically, filibusters of equal rights legislation have been discredited (examine voting rights bills in the 1960s). A Washington Post poll, earlier this year, concluded that 61 percent of adult Americans support a House vote for the District. The support is not surprising because District residents have fought in every American war and rank second in per capita income taxes paid to support our Democracy. Similar to the reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (2006), the D.C. Voting Rights Act would give a House vote to a majority African-American jurisdiction. According to Congressional scholars, the United States Congress has the vested and legitimate authority to grant voting rights to the District of Columbia.

Legislative Intent

The D.C. Voting Rights Act was crafted as a political compromise and is politically neutral. Under this legislation, the District of Columbia would get a House vote for the first time in 206 years, and Utah would get the seat it was denied because of counting irregularities in the 2000 Census. This historic legislation would ensure that the approximately 550,000 Americans in the District of Columbia as well as the residents of Utah are properly represented in Congress. As noted, Congress as a separate entity has always had jurisdiction over civil rights for the residents of the District of Columbia. Congress abolished slavery in the District nine months prior to the Emancipation Proclamation; segregated public accommodations and schools until the Brown decision in 1954; and prohibited home rule for the District to govern itself until 1974. To this end, Congress has remedied these and other inequities through its constitutional authority pertaining to all matters related to the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court asserts that this power is “full and unlimited” and provides Congress with the wherewithal to grant the District voting rights in the House of Representatives.

Action Required

Please call the Capitol Switchboard to contact your Senators at 202-224-3121 and urge them to support the D.C. Voting Rights Act (S.1257). NASW believes that enactment of S.1257 will affirm the bedrock Democratic principles of this Republic. Social Workers do not contend that this nation’s Founders would have systematically denied representation to the residents of the new capital they established. Continued disenfranchisement of District of Columbia residents is one of the most blatant violations of an imperative civil right, which is the unabridged right to vote

Contact: Lawrence Moore, III at (202) 336-8289