Action Alert: Tell your Representative to Sign-On
In December 2018, the Congenital Heart Futures Reauthorization Act became law. The law authorizes, or allows for, $10 million in research, data collection, and awareness activities at the CDC over the next 5 years. This is 2.5 times the current funding of $4 million.
Therefore we need to strongly advocate for full funding of the $10 Million in the budget for Fiscal Year 2020, or FY2020.
One way to do that is to encourage your Representative to sign their name to the Dear Colleague Letter that is being circulated in the House. The Senate is also working on one for the Senators, and we will share it as soon as it is available.
Email your Representative, today! (Remember, you can email their staff, too)
Here’s how:
1. Find their contact information
You may have it on a business card
You can visit House.gov to get the phone number. You can call and ask for the email address of the Health Legislative Aide
2. Send a brief email – edit the final paragraph to represent your relationship to CHD
Dear xxx,
I’m writing to ask you to support our congenital heart disease appropriations request for the CDC. We urge Congress to provide, as authorized by the Congenital Heart Futures Reauthorization Act, full funding of $10 million in FY2020 to the Congenital Heart Failure program at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities to support surveillance and awareness activities to address the public health impact of congenital heart disease across the lifespan.
You can show your support, today by adding your name to the Dear Colleague Letter being circulated by Representatives Bilirakis and Schiff. You may do so by contacting Shayne Woods (Shayne.Woods@mail.house.gov) in Bilirkais’ office.
Here is a link to the sample letter: https://www.conqueringchd.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/LHHS_CHD-Approps-Letter-FY2020.pdf
As a constituent and patient with congenital heart disease (parent of a child with CHD / sibling / friend) thank you, again, for your support!
Sincerely,
(your name)