Dear ICA Colleague,

ICA has been working hard through the Chiropractic Summit to represent the aspirations of ICA doctors and patients around the nation.  This unique profession-wide collective effort has yielded a host of historic action steps, all of which require your immediate personal involvement if our profession is to have the impact on the health care reform process it needs. 

In the Summit spirit of combined action, please see the news release on the other side of this alert for more information on the profession-wide call to action from the Summit.  ICA has called for your help in the past weeks to sign on with ICA’s grass-roots mobilization program, www.AdjustTheVote.org, and now we want to emphasize your immediate personal contact with The President of the United States and YOUR Congressional Representatives. 

I want to personally urge you to ACT TODAY.
 
First and foremost, you need to write a letter to The President of the United States.  I don’t know how many ICA members have ever written the President but now is the time and the need is urgent.  The outline of any health care reform program will be determined by the President and his health care team even while many key details of legislation will be crafted in the Congress.  It is vital that those key individuals, starting with the President himself, hear from the chiropractic profession and their patients in massive numbers, NOW! 

There is no form letter:  Tell your own personal chiropractic story, relate how patients are helped, how they rely on chiropractic and how important the ability to choose chiropractic is in maintaining quality and cost effectiveness.

Please note the following recommendations:

• Type your letter in the appropriate format, using your office letterhead, making sure to include your full name and mailing address.
• Identify yourself as a doctor of chiropractic, student, or patient.
• Carefully consider your message, taking appropriate time to compose your thoughts and the points you want to make.  Write succinctly with correct grammar and punctuation.  It is a good idea to have several people proof read your letter before mailing it.
• Be polite and do not use any profanity or harsh language of any sort.
• The proper salutation is “Dear Mr. President:”
• Address your letter to:             Barack Obama

President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

It would be great if ICA alone could generate 50,000 letters to the President, and to help us keep track, please notify ICA by e-mail at chiro@chiropractic.org when you letter goes out, and also keep a running total of how many other letters, from family, staff patients and friends, you can get out in the next few days. 

We believe that the White House will respond to your letter and you can display that response in your clinic to help mobilize your patients in this important fight.

Next, you need to contact your Congressional Representatives.  There will be a special release from ICA on that target audience very soon, but you do not need to wait to hear from us to act.   Tell them the same thing you told the President. 

YOU NEED TO ACT NOW!  THERE WILL BE NO SECOND CHANCE!

Thank you for your dedication to the brightest possible future for chiropractic. IF YOU ACT TODAY, we will have the best chance we could possibly have.  If you don’t act, we won’t.  It is that simple.

Yours in Service,
Gary L. Walsemann, DC, FICA
Gary L. Walsemann, DC, FICA
ICA President
 

 Chiropractic Summit V Issues Call
To Immediate Action on National
Health Care Reform

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION!

Chiropractic Summit V, which convened on May 14th in Washington, DC, has issued this historic CALL TO ACTION to the chiropractic profession, urging every Doctor of Chiropractic, state association, chiropractic student and chiropractic patient, to mobilize to represent chiropractic in the national health reform debate.  This unified nationwide call follows an intensive day-long Summit session in which Members of Congress, Congressional staff and key leaders in chiropractic and in public policy examined the precise state of national health care reform discussions to determine how and where the chiropractic profession will be most effective in directing messages of concern and calls for inclusion in any reform program.

It is imperative that you take IMMEDIATE ACTION to help ensure that your interests and those of your patients that need and depend on the essential services provided by a Doctor of Chiropractic are fully protected in any final legislation likely to emerge from Congress.

Specifically, we must:

• Guarantee that essential services delivered by a Doctor of Chiropractic are included as a covered benefit under any national reform plan.
• Ensure that all plans (including Medicare) allow for full direct access to the providers and health care pathways of their choice.  Every patient should have the right to choose and be reimbursed for all health care services from doctors of chiropractic without barriers and limitations that unfairly restrict their freedom of choice.
• Defeat any attempt to impose an MD-referral requirement for patients to obtain access to chiropractic care.

This is what you need to do TODAY!

• Contact your Members of Congress (House Member and two U.S. Senators) immediately using ACA’s Legislative Action Center or ICA’s www.AdjustTheVote.org.  At both sites, you can sign on to mobilize your patients and send regular appropriate pre-prepared messages to Congress quickly and efficiently.  
• Contact the President of the United States immediately via www.HealthReform.gov AND write a letter directly to the President of the United States, expressing your personal wishes regarding chiropractic inclusion in any reform proposal.  Address your letter to:                                                       Barack Obama

President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Because Congress and the White House will soon accelerate consideration of national reform legislation, it is vital we launch and sustain an intensified grassroots lobbying campaign NOW!