Prevention Policy Update!

State - Public hearings are scheduled in the Wisconsin Assembly today (Wednesday) on the Worksite Wellness bill and tomorrow (Thursday) for the youth access to OTP bill.

Committee on Health

Assembly Bill 220 (worksite wellness)

417 North at 10:30am on Wednesday

Committee on Public Helath

Assembly Bill 93 (other tobacco products)

300 Northeast at 2pm on Thursday

At this point, the former is likely to narrow to small businesses only and does not specify a specific funding source, and the later does not get strong enough to address our real youth access issues like tax equity, flavorings, or RYO.

If you're interested in following the fate of these policies this legislative session, I recommend using Wisconsin's Legislative Tracker. Let me know if you want to learn more about policy tracking.

Federal - The US Senate Budget Subcommittee surprisingly doubled CTG funding for FY2012 to $280 million, while cutting a bunch of other programs.

• "This program offers enormous potential to turn the environment in which Americans work, live and raise their families into one that offers a much greater array of healthy choices."

There will be amendments offered during committee markup tomorrow, including a likely one to eliminate the Prevention Fund entirely, so the sausage-making continues.