Capital issues for ORL nurses.

As the 1997 Nurse in Washington Intern for SOHN, I was awed by the quality and quantity of information and experiences shared during the workshop. The three major concerns in healthcare policy on Capitol Hill are cost, quality, and access. Healthcare costs have escalated at tremendous speed, bypassing the growth of the Gross Domestic Product. Medicare is projected to go broke by 2007. The United States population is aging rapidly. The Federal Government must make changes to Medicare and Medicaid legislation or the U.S. Treasury may be consumed. As costs are cut, quality and access must be ensured. These are years of rapid change in healthcare. Nurses face many challenges and have many opportunities to participate in and influence the formation of healthcare policy. Nurses must be armed with information about key players, the processes, and what nursing can contribute to the healthcare system. We need to step up to the plate; we need to be part of the solution.