Happy New Year From the MAMA Campaign!

We at the MAMA Campaign wish you a Happy New Year and hope you had an excellent holiday season!  We enjoyed our time off with our families, and are now back to work for Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) on Capitol Hill!  We want to give you an update about our goals and plans for the next month, which is the critical “home stretch” as the House and Senate make preparations for their final vote on the health care reform bill.

MAMA is Back on the Hill for Midwives and Mothers
Your Senators and Congress Members returned to Washington this week and are back in action to produce a health care bill for President Obama to sign early in the New Year.  And MAMA is right there too!

During these next few weeks, the House and the Senate will be working together in an informal “conference process” to reconcile the differences in the health care bills passed by each chamber late last year.  Our MAMA lobbyist, Billy Wynne, informed us that high level negotiations began last Thursday among the staff of the Senate and House leadership and key committees to hammer out a bill that both chambers can pass.  These staff members have cleared their calendars into the future for this work and held a 15 hour work session on Saturday.   While the negotiations are already proving contentious, it is expected that a deal will in fact be reached and that a final bill will be sent to the President sometime in February. 
The conference process offers a fresh opportunity for the Campaign to leverage the strong support that MAMA enjoys among members of the Senate Finance and the House Energy and Commerce Committees to raise the profile of Certified Professional Midwives in the final health care bill.  MAMA leadership, along with MAMA constituents from key states and Health Policy Source, our intrepid lobbyists, are at work over these next weeks of the conference process to include language in the final bill that will specifically reference Certified Professional Midwives. 
And we continue to be grateful to Senator Cantwell and Finance Committee leadership for Senator Cantwell’s provision that will have the effect of requiring payment of the provider fee for CPMs offering services in licensed birth centers – and for securing Senator Reid’s commitment to keep this provision in the bill throughout the conference process. 
And remember:  it is your support that has produced such important gains in Congress over these last months for Midwives and Mothers!  So keep your letters and dollars flowing as MAMA moves into the New Year with fresh energy for Midwives and Mothers!
MAMA Is Ready To Start the Year Strong!
Individual contributions from people like you give MAMA life.  Thanks to every one of our 500 donors, MAMA is alive and well!   With just a few more weeks to go, we need just a few more dollars.  Can you help us now by making a contribution of $50, $100, $500 or more?  Every dollar will be well-spent as we wrap-up this phase of our campaign to achieve federal recognition of Certified Professional Midwives!  
Any amount will make a difference!
Click here to donate to MAMA!
Keep Those Letters Coming!
As your legislators make crucial decisions about what will be included in health care reform, it is important that they hear from you and that they know that MAMA is watching!  Write to your members of Congress today to ask them to include Certified Professional Midwives in any health care reform legislation!  If you have not written yet, now is the time!  If you have written previously, write again!  Your Senators and Representatives need to hear from YOU on behalf of Certified Professional Midwives and Mothers, regardless of their position on health care reform.  Click here for help and sample letters you can use to contact your legislators.
MAMA Is Blogging Health Care Reform
Also back online after the holiday break is the Grapevine - MAMA’s source for keeping you up-to-date on health care reform.  Come see our take on the latest happenings on Capitol Hill!
Visit the Grapevine.

If you have any questions, concerns or comments please contact the campaign at info@mamacampaign.org.