Virtual Lobby Day A Great Success

August 5, 2010

Yesterday was the AARC’s Virtual Lobby Day. On this one day RTs, pulmonary patients and our supporters from across the country focused our efforts on flooding Capitol Hill with emails and phone calls looking for Congressional support for HR 1077 and S 343, our Medicare Respiratory Therapy Initiative.

And thousands of your messages hit the Hill making this a great success. Thank you all for making this such a successful effort. A special thanks must go out to the many patient organizations and the individuals who rallied their own members and supporters to send out emails with a patient’s point of view stating the importance of access to the respiratory therapist. The AARC is most grateful to:

• COPD Foundation (Jamie Lamson)
• COPD Alert (Vlady Rozenbaum)
• COPD International (Chip Gatchell)
• Alpha-1 Association (Marlene Erven)
• Alpha-1 Foundation (John W. Walsh)
• EFFORTS (Edna Fiore)

While we’ve taken our “big button” off the front page of the AARC website, those of you who might not have sent your message to Congress yet, still have an opportunity to do so. Our Virtual Lobby Day “how to” is still available on the Government Affairs page where it will be for the next few days.

The AARC thanks all of you, respiratory therapists, patients and supporters for making this Virtual Lobby Day a success.