[Your Letterhead]

 

 

[Date]

 

 

The Honorable [Full Name]

United States [Senate or House of Representatives]

United States Capitol

Washington, DC 20515

 

 

Dear [Representative or Senator],

 

I am a physician [practicing Occupational and Environmental Medicine, or add your own description] and your constituent.  As you and your colleagues work on national healthcare reform, I urge you to incorporate the following important principles into legislation, in order to safeguard and promote the health and productivity of the American workforce.

 

Over the past decade, the field of Occupational and Environmental Medicine has learned important lessons about effective workplace preventive programs --  both through creative initiatives in many American companies and through study of successful examples from other nations whose health care systems synergistically protect and promote the health of workers while improving worker productivity.  Accordingly, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) has advanced a set of principles that we believe should be incorporated into the current debate on restructuring the American health care system.   Described in detail in the publication  Healthy Workforce Now!, these principles include: 

 

á      Creation of federal Office of Worker Health and Productivity.

á      Establishment of a PresidentŐs Council on Worker Health and Productivity.

á      Emphasis on integrated health and productivity programs.

á      Required payment for workplace preventive services.

á      Tax credits for companies that develop comprehensive wellness programs.

á      Funding for Occupational Medicine residencies.

á      Funding for research in productivity enhancement.

 

Attached is the full report Healthy Workforce Now!  which is also available at www.acoem.org/healthyworkforcenow.aspx.

 

As a proud member of ACOEM, I urge you to become familiar with these important principles, to bring them into your current deliberations, and to support them as a cost-effective way to safeguard and promote the health and productivity of AmericaŐs workers.

 

Thank you for consideration,

 

 

 

[Your Name, MD]