As the House of Representatives "Rangels" about its leadership, APhA has been meeting about meetings!

Earlier this week, our staff conducted our final preconference planning meeting (“precon”) for the Annual Meeting coming up on March 12–15 here in Washington. Our staff is really pumped, and it was fun to listen to the banter as people from our various departments very professionally—but not too seriously—slugged through the incredible detail that makes one of these meetings a success.

We’re certainly buoyed by the response of our membership—we’ve already exceeded last year’s Annual Meeting registration numbers. Our staff is also excited about the quality of our speakers and the meeting content. Here’s a tip of the hat to a great staff!

I’m also very proud of our Board of Trustees. They volunteer hundreds of hours to provide leadership and perspective to us. Many of them have recruited dozens of student pharmacists and new practitioners to attend the political leadership breakfast on Monday morning. These events have the potential to make an indelible mark on impressionable pharmacists in the early stages of their careers. This mentorship is laudable, and not bad for supporting our advocacy agenda either!

So, while things are shaping up for our meeting, we’re still very unsure about what Congress will do with health care reform. Charlie Rangel (D–NY), under scrutiny for ethics violations, is stepping aside from his powerful leadership post on the House Ways and Means Committee. Lawmakers are debating the pros and cons of reconciliation as a legislative maneuver to pass a majority-supported HCR bill. President Obama is supporting that approach—even giving Congress a 2-week timeframe in which he'd like to see movement. Senate Republicans say we should start over, but that’s not going to happen.

Meanwhile, as far as we can tell, all of the MTM provisions we’ve fought so hard for this past year are still in the bills under consideration. Stay tuned. This ain’t over yet.