Here’s How You Can Help Our Industry
IHRSA needs our help in educating Members of Congress about the importance of allowing American’s to use flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs) to pay for health club memberships, fitness equipment, exercise videos, and youth sports leagues.
If passed, it will allow individuals to use up to $1,000 per year to cover these expenses and families to use up to $2,000 per year.
How can you help?
First, reach out to your Representative or Senator and ask them to support PHIT.
Second, IHRSA has organized a social media campaign to amplify the voices of all PHIT supporters through a Thunderclap. What is Thunderclap? Thunderclap is a social media tool that enhances the reach of a message to people across social media sites.
Here’s how you can join the campaign today.
Simply visit https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/55713-make-exercise-more-affordable?locale=en and authorize the social media tool Thunderclap to post a single message on Friday, May 19th at 1:00 pm EDT to your social media account(s). You can choose to have a one-time message posted on Facebook, Twitter and or Tumbler.
Legislative Update on PHIT – H.R.1267 and S.482: The Personal Health Investment Today Act
The House last week passed a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. The “Trumpcare” bill now moves to the Senate. It will likely go back and forth between the House and Senate a few times, so we’re not anywhere close to a new health care law.
As expected, PHIT was not included in this bill.
The good news is that PHIT has been introduced as part of Health Savings Act of 2017 by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Eric Paulsen (R-MN). Along with the Hatch/Paulsen HSA bill, a handful of other lawmakers have included PHIT-type language in their broader proposals to replace the current healthcare law.
To ensure that PHIT is eventually included in either tax reform or health care reform bills, IHRSA’s #PassPHIT strategy continues to focus on growing bipartisan sponsors for PHIT.
PHIT now has 10 sponsors in the Senate and 38 in the House—fairly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. IHRSA’s DC team is regularly meeting with Congressional staff to increase the list of cosponsors.
