A Battle That’s Worth Fighting


How often do you multi-task?
All the time, it's the only way I get things done. Sometimes, I try not to but sometimes I can't help it. Never, I just can't do more than one thing at a time.

Article Tools: Print

| Email

| Add Comment

Share |

A Battle That’s Worth Fighting
By: Stave Slagle, CAE, PPAI President/CEO
Issue: 2009dec

As the year winds to a close I think we all want to heave a long sigh and say, “It’s about time.” That might make us feel better if we really knew the tough times were over. But, I think we all know we still have some challenges ahead, despite the positive signs we’ve seen in the national economy through most of the fall months.

As I write this column in early November, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is hovering around 10,000, and I hope as you read this the index has picked up a couple hundred points or more. Without a doubt 2009 has been a taxing year (no pun intended), with many industry companies under stress and duress. As the third and fourth quarters unfolded we all saw glimmers of hope and indicators that economic improvement is underway, but overall our industry has remained pretty stagnant.

I have few if any skills in forecasting our economic future so I won’t try. From an Association perspective, I can only say that PPAI remains optimistic and positive, relying on historical evidence that suggests the downturn will one day upturn and our industry will see brighter days. In the meantime we’re all, including your Association, squeezing, trimming, cutting and working harder.

In reviewing the past year, despite a lot of attention and focus on the terrible economy, I have to keep the perspective that we have nonetheless accomplished some important things for our industry and members. Sometimes we can get so focused on what’s not going well that we forget about the positive achievements and the progress that has been made. To cite just one, albeit a very important initiative: government affairs.

PPAI upped its game substantially in 2009 as we had more than a few challenges in the legislative and regulatory arenas. We restructured our staff to provide dedicated effort to both government relations and product safety issues. We added another lobbyist in Washington, D.C., to focus specifically on healthcare-related legislation such as the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (PPSA) and we greatly enhanced our PPAI Legislative Action Watch website to provide an efficient and user-friendly means for our members to contact their elected officials.

We established a Government Relations Action Council comprised of members keenly interested in helping us influence the outcome of legislation that would adversely affect the industry, and we engaged all 28 regional associations to assist in establishing legislative committees at the regional and local levels. We focused most, not all, of our attention on PPSA, and as that legislation was folded into the larger national healthcare debate in early fall, the outcome is still uncertain.

We know we made progress by getting the attention of key senators and representatives and we gained their understanding and agreement about our positions. We also know our members paid attention and responded to our Legislative Action Alerts with thousands of e-mails, letters and phone calls. Our staff and members from regional associations made several visits to Washington, D.C., in October alone, and our staff and lobbyists have held dozens of meetings with elected officials and their staffs to state our case and ask for their support.

It’s too early to know if our efforts will pay off. Will Congress agree that inexpensive, logoed merchandise given to physicians and other healthcare providers causes no harm, creates no conflicts and is as legitimate as any other form of advertising protected by the free speech provisions of our Constitution? Do they understand that our form of gift isn’t a four-letter word? Many members of Congress are sympathetic to our position that such items should be exempt from the reporting rules outlined in the PPSA. Compared with the overwhelming issues raised by the emerging healthcare legislation proposed by the House and Senate though, I think we have to admit that our issue becomes almost insignificant to many in Congress. It’s difficult to get someone’s focus on the merits of an exemption from reporting all promotional items costing less than $10 when the larger debate is focused on how to pay for a trillion dollar healthcare plan over 10 years.

What’s important to any one industry isn’t necessarily important to others. Nonetheless, it’s been important on a number of levels for PPAI to be actively engaged in the legislative and regulatory battle this past year. The fight isn’t over, our position is right and we intend to continue our efforts until we have an answer. We just hope it’s one we can cheer about.

Comments (0)

* Name:
* Email:
Company:
* Title:
* Comments: