Last week's Supreme Court decision overturning the ban on independent corporate expenditures provides ADPAC more leeway in supporting pro-dentistry candidates, although how much this new leeway will improve the organization’s effectiveness remains to be seen.

The contributions that come into ADPAC are in two forms, "hard dollars" and "soft dollars." Hard-dollar contributions are designated for specific campaigns while soft dollars go into a general fund that ADPAC can use a number of ways, but only in ways that don't ask people to vote for specific candidates. That is about to change in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling.

Now PACs are free to use their soft dollars in ways that support specific candidates, for advertisements, for instance.

The court also ruled that corporations are allowed to spend their own money on behalf of candidates. The ban on direct corporate contributions to campaigns remains intact.

ADPAC emphasizes the importance of dentists meeting with their lawmakers face to face, getting to know them and discussing the issues with them. So while direct or in-kind contributions to campaigns are important, they are important only insofar as they help us get dentistry's message to lawmakers, messages delivered by dentists.

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The ADA last week filed comments with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, outlining the Association’s position on the government's efforts to enhance public access to achived scientific peer-reviewed articles resulting from federally funded research.

Like many organizations heavily involved in scientific research, the ADA is very concerned about any development that might hurt the Journal of the American Dental Association, which recovers its operational costs through advertising and subscription revenue. So, while we applaud efforts to make government-funded research publically available at no cost, we also urged the Administration to consider taking steps to protect intellectual property, grant public access to final published research only, and limit access until 12 months after publication.

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An article in the Jan. 20 U.S. News & World Report by health writer Judith Palfrey, M.D. explains the safety and efficacy of dental amalgam. The information presented in the article very closely mirrors what the ADA has posted on its Web site.

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The ADA, working with a number of national labor organizations, succeeded in convincing lawmakers working on health care reform to exclude dental coverage costs in calculating a controversial tax on employer-provided high-end health insurance.

The coalition argued that the original proposal, which would tax annual premiums in excess of $23,000, would put ancillary coverage like dental and optical in jeopardy by making them tempting targets of employers looking for ways to bring their plans under the cap.

The ADA and others were able to convince lawmakers to exclude dental coverage in the so-called "Cadillac health tax," as well as to have the cap increased.

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The ADA joined with 20 other organizations of the Health Coalition on Liability and Access (HCLA) in urging House and Senate leaders last week to retain and strengthen language in health care reform legislation that would improve medical liability law for the benefit of both patients and providers.

While the HCLA continues to favor comprehensive medical liability reforms, including reasonable limits on non-economic damages, the coalition is urging Congress to incorporate in its final legislation provisions on demonstration projects and standards of care, as well as a guarantee that any new federal health care legislation does not nullify current and future state liability reforms by any new federal health care legislation.

A copy of the HCLA letter can be read here .

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The ADA urged congressional health care reform negotiators again last week to support inclusion of the House language that would repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act's exemption for insurance companies.

"Dentists, their patients, and the public at large are all victims of McCarran-Ferguson's negative impact on competition among entities in the insurance industry and all would benefit from its repeal," wrote ADA President Dr. Ron Tankersley, in a letter to House and Senate leaders.

The letter states that the House language would "bring the insurance industry into line with other American businesses by eliminating the special treatment granted to insurance institutions almost 65 years ago with passage of the McCarran-Ferguson law."

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The ADA today asked its grassroots members to contact their representatives and senators and urge them to preserve the House language in health care reform legislation that would repeal the McCarran-Ferguson Act's exemption of the health insurance industry from some federal antitrust laws. The ADA believes that its members are adversely affected by the McCarran-Ferguson exemption by allowing insurance companies to work jointly and fix prices.

The action alert is located online .

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