Legislative Priorities

Health Care Reform

The Amputee Coalition will work to protect provisions in the Affordable Care Act pertinent to people with limb loss, including protections for people with “pre-existing conditions,” allowing children to remain on their caregiver’s plan until the age of 26, essential health benefits that define prosthetic care as essential under the “rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices” provision, removal of lifetime caps, protections like out-of-pocket maximums, and that individuals who received coverage under the Affordable Care Act (through private payers or the Medicaid expansion program), are not left out or forgotten.

Insurance Fairness for Amputees

The Amputee Coalition has worked to pass 20 state laws that ensure insurance companies that operate in those states provide adequate coverage for prosthetic care.  With health care reform coming to the forefront for the second time since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, the Amputee Coalition is once again focused on advancing the Insurance Fairness for Amputees Act at the federal level and in the remaining 30 states that don’t currently have such a law.  This legislation seeks to eliminate arbitrary caps and restrictions placed on prosthetic care and to treat prosthetic care like other benefits within an individual’s policy.

Funding Initiatives

The Amputee Coalition will look to maintain current funding from the Administration for Community Living (ACL) which is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. This funding goes a long way in funding the services and resources the Amputee Coalition provides for the limb loss community.

Reasonable Travel for Amputees

Assuring that security screening is conducted in a reasonable and appropriate fashion by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for people with limb loss remains a priority for the Amputee Coalition. There remain concerns about intrusive and inconsistency in screening policies from the limb loss community. The Amputee Coalition will continue to work with TSA as members of the TSA’s Disability and Multicultural Coalition Task Force to help them to understand these issues so that they can be appropriately addressed to make the traveling experience as reasonable as possible while maintaining the safety for all travelers.

Limb Loss Awareness Month Proclamations

The Amputee Coalition continues to seek proclamations every April in all 50 states to declare April as Limb Loss Awareness Month. In addition, a template letter and copy of proclamation language is available for those who would like to help raise awareness with city councils, mayors, governors, state legislators, and more to continue to push recognition and support during Limb Loss Awareness Month. This will help the Amputee Coalition to raise awareness about limb loss and provide a mechanism for the whole community to increase their awareness of limb loss.

Advance work with partners and coalition groups

The Amputee Coalition has as a goal to continue to build partnerships with national disability coalitions and professional member organizations to collaborate on issues that affect the limb loss community as well as general disability community. These issues tend to be broader issues (Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA], Medicare and Medicaid issues, funding for programs and research, and among others, other access to care issues), and the Amputee Coalition will advance our work with these partner groups to ensure the limb loss community, the disabled community, and the professional community that supports people with limb loss are represented.