AAHomecare’s Gorski: Hand-to-Hand Combat on H.R. 3790

WASHINGTON — Just how critical is it that industry
stakeholders get enough cosponsors for H.R. 3790 to gain Congress’
attention? And that they do it fast?

“It’s huge,” said Cara Bachenheimer, senior vice
president of government relations for Elyria, Ohio-based
Invacare.

“Time is ticking away. The sooner we get this done, the better,”
Bachenheimer said of the bill to repeal DMEPOS competitive bidding.

With the release of President Obama’s revised health reform
plan, industry stakeholders have an opportunity to attach the bill
as reform legislation begins to move over the next few weeks.

“[CMS] thinks they are on the right track” with the bidding
program, AAHomecare President and CEO Tyler Wilson told attendees
at the group’s Legislative Conference Wednesday morning. “At the
end of the day, the only thing they are going to respond to is
Congress.”

Introduced in October, the bill had garnered 152 cosponsors as
an army of HME providers prepared to visit legislators to ask for
their help with the proposed legislation. Unless Congress takes
action, Round 1 of the bidding program will go live in January
2011.

“It should be real motivation as we go forward today that this
piece of legislation could be our salvation … that’s the
light at the end of the tunnel …  so we’ve got to push
ahead,” Wilson said.

With cosponsors on the bill across the 150 mark, added the
association’s Walt Gorski, vice president of government affairs,
“now it’s hand-to-hand combat and guerilla warfare” to gain
additional cosigners.

“We’ve got to get to one person at a time however we can,”
Gorski said.

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