Hello,

Attached, and linked on NACDD's homepage, you will find our statement on passage of the American Healthcare Act yesterday - http://nacdd.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/AHCA-Statement-by-NACDD-on-House-Passage-715.pdf

I have already been asked for suggestions of what next to tell advocates, and I will be joining many calls with coalition partners over the next few days to determine strategy forward, but my initial suggestions I made to a few of you last night and wanted to share with everyone included the following:

The House is out on recess starting today for a week, so having people show up at their town halls to thank them or voice displeasure with their vote is one suggestion for action.

The Senate is in session next week, and has already stated they won't be taking up the AHCA in its entirety, but that a group of 12 (still looking for which members) are looking at the AHCA and have been working on writing new legislation, so continuing to educate and inform Senators about the series concerns with the AHCA, but also asking all of the Senate to engage in a bi-partisan, deliberative, transparent open process is important right now including that they need to have hearings on their bill once drafted. Anything to slow the process helps right now.

And, as you know, reminding people that this still has a long way to go, to the Senate and then likely back to the House or conference, and we will need advocates to continue to engage in the coming days and weeks and maybe months. As we all know, people are not losing coverage or benefits tomorrow, but the press is not helping this fear, but to ensure it does not happen we need them to continue to engage when they see those alerts since you can see how close this was with yesterday's vote.

Again, thank you from me for the tremendous effort and partnership the last few months!

Regards,
Cindy