Families and advocates, your persistent work is paying off, and we are moving the Ensuring Lasting Smiles Act (S.560/H.R.1379) forward!
The Ensuring Lasting Smiles Act (ELSA) is one of seven different bills included in a legislative hearing conducted by the Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Health in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, January 8 at 10 a.m. EST.
Titled, “Legislation to Improve Americans’ Health Care Coverage and Outcomes,” this hearing is one of the important steps needed to move ELSA through committee.
Kevin Koser, co-chair of the National Foundation for Ectodermal Dysplasias Family-Driven Advocacy Committee, will testify on behalf of families living with congenital anomalies and share his son, Kannon’s story. Kevin will be allowed five-minutes to share his oral testimony.
Then, members of the committee will have time to ask him questions. Several other members of our Family-Driven Advocacy Committee will also attend.
You should be able to watch Kevin’s testimony as the hearing will be livestreamed.
How You Can Help
This is a critical time to garner support and move ELSA further through Congress. We are calling on all advocates to contact your legislators with the following requests:
- If your legislators have not yet co-sponsored, email/call them and ask them to co-sponsor the Ensuring Lasting Smiles Act (H.R.1379/S.560).
- If your legislators have co-sponsored ELSA, please email/call them and ask them for their help to move the bill forward through Congress.
With your help, we can continue to move ELSA forward through Congress. Let’s keep this momentum going and get this bill passed by the end of 2020!
Stay in the Know
We encourage you to register as an advocate and join the Ensuring Lasting Smiles Act Advocates Facebook Group to receive the most up-to-date information on ELSA’s progress.
I watched the hearing yesterday. We didn’t have any experts from medicine or dentistry or maxillofacial surgeons or anyone else to back up what we know. Is there a reason I’m not aware of? Just curious. Thanks
Hi, Donna. Thanks for watching the hearing! It was exciting. We were granted 5 minutes to present our case. After much discussion, our advocacy team felt Kevin Koster was the best spokesperson to present information about ELSA. He’s not only the dad of an affected son, but he’s been deeply involved in the advocacy for ELSA. He knows the topic backwards and forwards and speaks well. For these reasons, he was a strong speaker to represent us and the bill. We really haven’t received questions about the importance of teeth or need for the oral health care. Concerns voiced are more about insurance being a state issue or about possible cost. Hope that helps you understand! ~ Jodi, Director, Marketing and Communications, NFED
Does NFED have any kind of a form letter that I can give to my prosthodontist so that she can be an advocate for ELSA also? She is willing to write to my Representative and Senators but asked me what she should say. Does NFED have any language I can recommend? I think that having the medical profession advocate for ELSA would help to add momentum and credibility.
Hello Peter,
Happy New Year and thank you for your advocacy!
The Advocacy Resources webpage should have everything you need. I have included a link here: https://nfed.org/get-involved/advocate/advocacy-resources/
Let me know if you need anything else. ~Becky