Basketball Legend and Kidney Disease Patient Alonzo Mourning, Bi-Partisan Members of Congress Gather on Capitol Hill to Introduce Landmark Bi-Partisan Legislation to Modernize Medicare End Stage Renal Disease Program

7/7/2004

From: John Bilotta, 301-351-0121, Candace Hewitt, 301-661-0375, both for Kidney Care Partners

WASHINGTON, July 7 -- Basketball legend Alonzo Mourning visited a Capitol Hill reception on Wednesday evening, July 7, to support the introduction of new legislation aimed at helping hundreds of thousands of Americans who suffer from kidney failure and who rely on Medicare for life-saving dialysis treatments. The event was sponsored by Kidney Care Partners (KCP), a coalition of patient advocacy groups, providers, and suppliers committed to improving the lives of those suffering from kidney disease.

Cosponsors of the legislation include Senators Conrad (D-N.D.) and Santorum (R-Pa.), and Representatives Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Bill Jefferson (D-La.). Other Members and staff from both sides of the aisle attended the reception to show their support.

Mourning, who suffered from kidney failure and underwent a kidney transplant in 2003, has become an outspoken advocate for the growing numbers of patients with kidney disease. He visited a dialysis clinic and the Capitol reception in Washington on Wednesday to help draw attention to important legislation to ensure quality care, adequate preventative education and disease awareness.

"Every day, renal care professionals work to improve the health and well-being of thousands of Americans who suffer from irreversible kidney failure, yet Medicare is neither keeping up with the cost of that care nor providing adequate preventative education" said Mourning. "These are chronically-ill individuals, who are among the sickest and most vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries. Without dialysis or a transplant, they would not survive."

"More than 400,000 people suffer with kidney failure in the U.S. today, and disproportionate number of minorities is afflicted with kidney disease. Congress needs to recognize the crisis these patients face and take legislative action to address the current inadequacies and to invest in patient programs to slow down the predicted increase in the number of patients with kidney failure," says KCP Chairman Dr. Raymond M. Hakim.

The ESRD Medicare Program was established in 1972 to cover patients of any age who suffer from kidney failure and need dialysis treatments to stay alive. Before the program, thousands of Americans who had kidney failure were dying because they could not afford, or had no access to lifesaving dialysis treatments.

Today, the program continues to provide coverage for dialysis patients of any age, but because the Program has not been modernized, the reimbursement rates are no longer covering the costs of dialysis treatments for providers, and numbers of patients who are at risk for kidney failure are not receiving proper education about proper preventative health measures.

"The time is now to modernize this effective but outdated program and make it consistent with the realities of the 21st Century where diabetes is becoming epidemic. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are depending on it and unless Congress acts now, the number of patients needing this life-sustaining therapy will increase inexorably," Dr. Hakim says.

Patient advocates, providers and research institutions from all over the U.S. also attended the reception to show their support for the legislation.