July Fourth Marks New Highpoint in 2024
Voter Registration Campaign
Non-Partisan
KidneyVoter™ Drive Fueled by Federal Policy
Disarray
WASHINGTON, July 3, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- On the Fourth of July, American Independence Day,
the American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP) announced the
rapid success and growing impact of its 2024
non-partisan KidneyVoter™ registration drive. On
June 19, Flag Day, AAKP kicked off
its 2024 drive, titled "50 States in 50 Days." As
the largest and oldest fully independent kidney patient
organization in the nation, AAKP's non-partisan voter registration
program engages all people impacted personally and professionally
by kidney diseases, kidney failure, and kidney transplant
concerns.
For 2024, AAKP has set a target of engaging over 500,000
KidneyVoters™, building on the success of its 2020 goal
of engaging over 100,000 KidneyVoters™. As a part of the
"50 States in 50 Days" initiative, AAKP has already engaged
a record number of kidney community members through grasstops and
grassroots efforts across Illinois, Massachusetts, New
Jersey, New York,
Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Interest in the nonpartisan effort
has accelerated among kidney patients, organ donors and donor
families, kidney care professionals, researchers, and employees of
start-up and well-established companies across the medical
industry. Over 37 million people are impacted by kidney disease in
the United States, nearly one in
seven adults, almost 600,000 people receive life-saving kidney
dialysis, and over 90,000 people are awaiting a kidney
transplant.
AAKP will soon engage kidney community members in the states of
Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Maine, Nevada, North
Carolina, and Wisconsin.
AAKP utilizes a sophisticated suite of digital and grassroots
targeting tools and leverages data gained from online education
programs and signature events, legislative awareness campaigns, and
issue action campaigns through AAKP's Patient Choice Patient
Voice™ program. AAKP formally launched the
KidneyVoter™ registration and mobilization program
in 2019 after first testing various technologies and
tactics in 2018 through AAKP's national grassroots and online
networks. The program is housed in AAKP's Center for Patient
Engagement and Advocacy and coordinates several message campaigns,
including "I AM A KIDNEYVOTER™."
AAKP Executive Director Diana
Clynes stated, "AAKP began our 2024 KidneyVoter™
drive in the state of New York in
honor of our six dialysis Patient Founders who received their care
at Kings County Hospital. Beginning in 1969, these brave
individuals harnessed the power of patient voices and patient votes
to increase their independence from kidney disease and to prevent
avoidable deaths among their fellow Americans. By 1973, their
pioneering advocacy before the U.S. Congress and White House
resulted in dialysis and transplant coverage for every American
suffering from kidney failure. AAKP will never forget its advocacy
roots or the lesson that citizen participation in elections and the
officials we elect to serve us have profound and lasting
implications for the future of kidney medicine, patient lives, and
patient livelihoods." AAKP Patient Founders led the national
grassroots effort that drove Congress to enact changes to the
Social Security Act in 1972 to cover dialysis and transplantation.
The bipartisan changes were included in Congressional legislation
signed by President Richard Nixon in
1973. The benefit, paid by U.S. taxpayers and responsible for
saving millions of lives, is commonly known as the End-Stage Renal
Disease Program (ESRD), administered by the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services (CMS).
AAKP defines kidney disease as both a workforce and health care
issue and labels federal government decisions that knowingly or
unwittingly harm kidney patients as Government Determinants of
Health (GDoH). Multiple federal agencies under the U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) are currently behind in their
commitments and uncoordinated in their approaches to adequately
address the decades-long demands of the kidney community. HHS
agencies have failed to improve kidney disease screening and
prevention recommendations, approve new clinical endpoints to
jumpstart a new generation of transplant drugs and align CMS
payment regulations to better support patient access to new,
FDA-approved drugs, diagnostics, and devices. In one example of
GDoH, a decision made by a CMS Medicare Advisory Contractor (MAC)
in 2023, publicly defended by the CMS Administrator, has resulted
in a 50% reduction in molecular blood tests for organ health
surveillance used among kidney transplant patients on Medicare
since 2017. AAKP is committed to transforming kidney care beyond
the status quo and outdated, high-mortality dialysis care and its
associated high levels of unemployment, disability, and dependency.
The organization is heavily involved in research and advocacy
efforts related to artificial implantable and wearable organs and
xenotransplantation.
AAKP advocacy leaders have received numerous awards for their
policy efforts before the Executive Branch and Congress. AAKP
patient and care partner volunteers received recognition from
President Donald Trump
in 2020 and President Joe
Biden in 2022 through the President's Volunteer
Service Award (PVSA) program. AAKP leaders provide unique patient
viewpoints to government leaders on a regular basis and have
elevated kidney community concerns during the past several
presidential transitions
(read 2020 and 2021 articles).
AAKP is nationally and globally recognized for leadership in
disease education, research partnerships, inclusive clinical
trials, and policy advocacy before the U.S. Congress, White House,
and international institutions, including the United Nations and
the World Health Organization (WHO). AAKP's national and global
strategy rests on three core principles: advancement of patient
consumer care choice and access to new innovations; protection of
the patient and doctor relationship from third-party interference,
especially by non-kidney experts; and aggressive support of
regulatory and payment policies that accelerate, not impede,
advancement of kidney medicine research and patient access to
kidney innovations.
About the American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP):
Since 1969, AAKP has been a patient-led organization driving policy
discussions on kidney patient care choice and medical innovation.
Over the past decade, AAKP patient advocates have helped advance
lifetime transplant drug coverage for kidney transplant recipients
(2020); the presidential Executive Order on Advancing American
Kidney Health (2019); new job protections for living organ donors
under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) via the U.S. Department
of Labor (2018); and Congressional legislation allowing
HIV-positive organ transplants for HIV-positive patients (2013).
Follow AAKP on social media at @kidneypatient on
Facebook, @kidneypatients on Twitter,
and @kidneypatients on Instagram, and
visit www.aakp.org for more information.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Jennifer Rate
Director, Communications and Digital Operations
jrate@aakp.org
(813) 400-2394
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SOURCE American Association of Kidney Patients