This month, Development Director, Savannah Bolin and long time supporter and Board of Directors member, Steve Sparkman had the opportunity to lobby Elected Officials on Capitol Hill.

All of the Congressmen Savannah and Steve met with voted in favor of passing the Special Diabetes Program. We are to thankful that JDRF has friendly faces in Washington who support type 1 research, but the conversation is not over! There are still issues at hand that Savannah and Steve wanted to discuss with the Congressmen.

These topics included:

• The importance of ensuring medicare beneficiaries have access to artificial pancreas systems. Each Congressmen was asked to sign a letter being circulated by the Diabetes Caucus co-chairs regarding the issue.
• The paramount issue of health insurance coverage protection for people pre-existing conditions. If these protections are not ensured by federal legislation, insurance companies could deny people coverage or charge them higher rates just because of their T1D. We urge all member of Congress to ensure these protections to all Americans
• The lack of affordable insulin. We urged the Congressmen to support passing drug rebate programs for insulin beneficiaries.

We are so thankful that these Elected Officials were able to meet with JDRF and we look forward to their continued support of the T1D community.

Check out some awesome photos below!

Representatives from chapters all over Virginia met with Senator Mark Warner and representatives from Senator Tim Kaine’s office.

Savannah and Steve were also able to meet with the offices of state representatives Bobby Scott and Scott Taylor

JDRF Hampton Roads will have an opportunity to speak with our elected representatives again this month! If you are interested in coming along please email our Board Advocacy Chair, Cindy Bitterman, at cmbitterman@gmail.com for more information. Dates TBD.