NLN
National League for Nursing

Call to Action

National Black Nurses Association
September 12, 2016

Dear NBNA Members,
 
On the week of 9/11, Congress is unbelievably considering specific anti-APRN legislation. The NLN needs you to contact your members of Congress immediately to stop it in its tracks.
 
 
As part of critical legislation extending expiring Veterans benefits, HR 5985, introduced late Friday by House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (FL), includes a provision putting off for one year any rule offering Full Practice Authority for CRNAs - by name!  APRN care in the VA is under attack from Sec. 415 of HR 5985!  With the end of this session of Congress very near, HR 5985 has been scheduled for a House vote Tuesday, September 13, under an expedited procedure that requires a 2/3 majority to pass and prohibits all amendments.
 
We need every nurse, nurse educator, and student to contact their members of Congress now with this message: Take the special-interest, controversial Sec. 415 out of HR 5985. Veterans' benefits extenders are too important for anyone to jam special interest provisions that set terrible precedent and that delay bipartisan, evidence-based efforts to reduce our Veterans wait times for the care they need and deserve.
 
We don't have much time. We have to be heard. Even though there is a vote Tuesday afternoon, it is not too late to stop it-if you act now.
 
Thank you in advance for taking this important action for our Veterans and the APRN profession.