FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media contact: Jim Nowakowski jim@interlinegroup.com
847-358-6884
Using Legislative Tracking to Help Veterans: How BillTrack50 Navigated the Sea of Legislation to Produce Positive Results for Injured Vets
PALATINE, IL – Karen Suhaka, founder of BillTrack50, a website that tracks legislation at the state and federal level, hears a lot of stories about how her tool is used to promote a cause.
“As an advocate among advocates, there are enormous feelings of empathy when I hear about people who use our tools to advance a cause in the legislative process,” Suhaka says, “especially since that process is strewn with obstacles. Governments don’t always make it easy.”
So when Suhaka heard the story of how a grandfather in Texas used BillTrack50 to pass TX HB271, a bill that specifically dealt with a cause involving injuries to veterans returning from battle, her excitement spilled over. The cause was treatment for veterans suffering from a particular injury (TBI, or Traumatic Brain Injury), and the bill that grandfather worked to get passed involved setting up the pilot program to treat these injuries – a treatment that works miracles.
Rainey Owen, whose grandson was cured from TBI because of the treatment, explained it this way:
“You have to understand my grandson, Captain Matthew Smothermon, did Route Clearance in Afghanistan,” Owen says, “which is considered one of the most dangerous missions. His vehicle was struck by three very large IEDs and he was hospitalized. Ultimately he was taken off the front lines as a result of those injuries, the most debilitating side-effect being his traumatic brain injury (TBI). Now here is where the story gets interesting.”
Following the traumatic brain injury, Owen’s grandson was only a shell of his former self and was unable to concentrate in order to return to legal studies when he returned. Owen’s grandson began researching treatments for such injuries, and ended up signing up for a study at Oklahoma State University onHyperbaric Oxygen Therapy for people with post-concussion symptoms from mild traumatic brain injury.
“That changed everything,” Owen said. “The Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy has given him his life back. So I figured, he’s not the only one suffering from this. That’s when I took action and found Karen’s website to help me on my quest to help others like Matthew.”
According to Owen, BillTrack50 gave him the ability to find legislation being considered in other states, and even on the national level. “That was my interest in Karen and her system,” he explains. “What’s going on in other places, what approach should I take, what can I learn? I had no idea when I started that I would be able to find these answers.”
Owen used the text of the various bills he found from other states as a guide to shaping his own. “I took the Oklahoma bill and printed out and gave it to our legislature as a starting place,” he says. “I provided them with a foundation with people who were already in motion on this subject.”
The result was TX HB271.
TX HB271 presents several definitions about the VETERANS RECOVERY PILOT PROGRAM, including “Hyperbaric oxygen treatment” which means “treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder or a traumatic brain injury prescribed by a health care practitioner and delivered in a hyperbaric chamber approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, or a hyperbaric oxygen device that is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for investigational use under the direction of an institutional review board with a national clinical trial number.”
Like many such bills, it describes the establishment and operation of the program, the rules in which the program will operate including eligibility, funding of the program, reimbursement provisions and the termination of the program as well as the reports that have to be generated as a result of the program. Finally, the expiration date of the program is provided.
“What Rainey found was that BillTrack50 is that kind of resource,” Suhaka says. “One of its most useful features is to discover issues that you might have had no idea that are being addressed in other states that match your own concerns. Legislators are up to their eyebrows every session; they don’t always have time to do research to find these kinds of resources and make use of them. Rainey’s issue was focused on hyperbaric oxygen, and I’m delighted our tools were able to help him.”
For example, Suhaka points out that there are six bills that have been currently passed on Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, most recently three in March of this year in Arizona, Indiana and Kentucky. Prior to that, another bill was passed in Indiana and Owen’s Texas bill which was based on one in Oklahoma.
“In fact, over 50 bills have been introduced in the last few years around this topic,” Suhaka adds. “But being used this way, to help people who really need help, is about the best you can ask for when you create a website like BillTrack50.” For a full list of the bills you can go here:https://billtrack50.com/Public/Stakeholder/R7Kn4iiKqEm9ZuzMHHjgZA
“There are 600 suicides per year with veterans here in Texas,” Owen says, “And Texas had around in the order of 1.7 million veterans since 9/11. I wanted to help to stop the suicides.”
“One of the things is that many who suffer from trauma from blasts, continued conflict, many of these veterans can remember what they were like beforethey had TBI,” Owen adds. “They have a memory of that, and they think there is no way to get back to what they were. They become despondent and feel there is no way out. Well, now there is such a way, at least for some of them.”
“I was so pleased to play a minor part in Rainey’s effort,” Suhaka emphasizes. “I remember there was a TV Series as a young girl called The Naked City focusing on New York that had an intro that said something like ‘There are a million stories in the naked city. This is one of them.’ When you think about the millions of causes out there that need to enter, study, create and win in the legislatures in this country, knowing BillTrack50 exists and can help…well, I was really glad that we could be part of this one.”
A map produced using BillTrack50.com displays 2018 legislative activity concerning Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) by state.
For more information on BillTrack50, visit https://www.billtrack50.com/ or email Karen Suhaka Karen@LegiNation.com.
LegiNation, Inc. was founded with the goal of making state-level legislation more readily available to the professionals who need it and, even more importantly, to the public at large. Located in Denver, CO, the company’s BillTrack50 website is one of the leading tools available for researching state legislation, federal legislation, and serving legislators. Basic access is free, with a tiered pricing plan for individuals and organizations that need more powerful capabilities.
Marketing Representatives LLC (MRL) is a comprehensive manufacturing representative organization based in Palatine, Illinois. MRL handles sales responsibilities along with advertising and communications tactics to promote, sell, and engage client customers and potential customers in purchasing products or services. MRL generates positive awareness of clients’ businesses and products, as well as developing the path to purchase. For more information, contact Jim Nowakowski at 847-358-6884, jim@interlinegroup.com or visit marketingrepsllc.com. Marketing Representatives LLC is located at: 553 N. North Court, Suite 160, Palatine, IL 60067.
For more information on BillTrack50, visit https://www.billtrack50.com/ or email Karen Suhaka Karen@LegiNation.com.