Today we are joining tens of thousands of health care advocates to start making history by calling for health care reform that meets the needs of women and their families. Along with all our partners at Health Care for America Now, the National Women’s Law Center is asking health advocates to contact their Representatives to support the House America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200).
The House bill (H.R. 3200) will provide quality, affordable, and comprehensive health care. The bill will:
End unfair and discriminatory insurance industry practices such as gender rating — when women are charged higher premiums than men simply because they are women — and pre-existing condition exclusions;
Provide affordable coverage;
Ensure that medical experts — not Congress — decide what’s in a comprehensive health package, including whether to cover abortion and other reproductive health care; and
Help lower costs for those of us who have insurance.
And it is paid for fairly and responsibly.
The opposition is pulling out all the stops to block health care reform that meets the needs of women and their families. Reform opponents, including industry groups and some naysayers in Congress, are using scare tactics and ratcheting up anti-choice threats in hopes of delaying health coverage for millions of Americans during this great time of need. And as we continue to move closer towards achieving reform, these opponents are becoming increasingly negative — putting politics before the health of women and their families.
With 14,000 Americans becoming uninsured every day, with three out of five women saying they cannot pay their medical bills, and with more women than men saying they skip medical care because they cannot afford it, there is no more critical time than today to make our voices heard. Women and their families can simply not wait any longer for health reform.
Today we are joining tens of thousands of health care advocates to start making history by calling for health care reform that meets the needs of women and their families. Along with all our partners at Health Care for America Now, the National Women’s Law Center is asking health advocates to contact their Representatives to support the House America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200).
The House bill (H.R. 3200) will provide quality, affordable, and comprehensive health care. The bill will:
- End unfair and discriminatory insurance industry practices such as gender rating — when women are charged higher premiums than men simply because they are women — and pre-existing condition exclusions;
- Provide affordable coverage;
- Ensure that medical experts — not Congress — decide what’s in a comprehensive health package, including whether to cover abortion and other reproductive health care; and
- Help lower costs for those of us who have insurance.
And it is paid for fairly and responsibly.
The opposition is pulling out all the stops to block health care reform that meets the needs of women and their families. Reform opponents, including industry groups and some naysayers in Congress, are using scare tactics and ratcheting up anti-choice threats in hopes of delaying health coverage for millions of Americans during this great time of need. And as we continue to move closer towards achieving reform, these opponents are becoming increasingly negative — putting politics before the health of women and their families.
With 14,000 Americans becoming uninsured every day, with three out of five women saying they cannot pay their medical bills, and with more women than men saying they skip medical care because they cannot afford it, there is no more critical time than today to make our voices heard. Women and their families can simply not wait any longer for health reform.
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Thao Nguyen is the Senior Outreach Manager for Health and Reproductive Rights. She manages the outreach efforts for the Center’s work on women and health care, reproductive rights, and judicial nominations. Previously, Thao managed the policy and advocacy work at different HIV/AIDS and environmental organizations. Her education has mainly come from her random traveling experiences, which includes sharing a truck with ducks around Vietnam and getting caught playing hide-and-seek in the House of Lords during off hours. She also received a BA in English Literature from the University of California, Irvine and an MA in Human Rights Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Thao spends her free time espousing the marvels of Ebay.
9 Comments
October 26, 2011 at 5:48 pm by Alexis YeadonMany thanks for another really good post. Exactly where else can everyone have that type of information and facts in created in such a clear approach. I’ve a demonstration in a few days, and I has been looking for precisely the information you’ve just given me. Cheers.
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August 4, 2009 at 1:41 pm by TrinaYou guys should watch the Obama Deception on youtube. It’s very interesting.
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July 31, 2009 at 9:41 am by chrisEveryone should check out this Friday’s 20/20 episode (July 31, 2009). Stossel went to Canada and Great Britain and will report on what he experienced in their healthcare settings.
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July 30, 2009 at 11:15 pm by Chris JohnsonElisa,
I take issue with the article you reference that highlighted a study which reported medical problems being the cause of 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the US in 2007. Unfortunately, the researcher of this study took questionable liberties with the results in this study by “doctoring” the findings in order to achieve the 62% number. The study was done by Dr. David Himmelstein, a Harvard researcher and outspokenan advocate for a single-payer health insurance program in the US.
His study surveyed 2,134 random families who filed for bankruptcy between January and April in 2007, using public bankruptcy court records and the survey of 1,032 respondents who were reached by telephone.
Of those respondents, ONLY 29 PERCENT directly attributed their medical bills to their bankruptcies. However, the 62 percent value that was reported in the study’s finding comprised not only those respondents who blamed illness for their bankruptcy, but they added addition respondent information that was collected which showed additional respondents having medical bills totaling more than 10 percent of their family incomes or had reported a loss of income due to illness or some other medical factor. Dr Himmelstein’s team mirepresented the results of their study by discounting the reported 29% that was in direct response to the question of what caused the respondents’ bankruptcies and instead inflated the numbers to make a more dramatic finding by adding additional variables that were not considered attributable by the respondents.
Elisa, you knew this and for some reason you deliberately chose to use the findings of this study to deceive us without providing the details about how the 62% was truly derived. How can we ever trust what you post on this blog in the future?
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July 29, 2009 at 9:59 am by Elisa BatistaThank you for your timely update, Thao. I thought I would share this MSN Money story:
“Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007, according to a study by Harvard researchers. And in a finding that surprised even the researchers, 78% of those filers had medical insurance at the start of their illnesses, including 60.3% who had private coverage, not Medicare or Medicaid.”
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July 28, 2009 at 5:17 pm by Chris JohnsonThe House bill (H.R. 3200) will not provide quality, affordable, or comprehensive health care.
The bill will discriminate against patients who have serious medical conditions and driving the majority of the medical costs in our country. First on the list are the elderly, which the administration wants to save $500 billion from Medicare/Medicaid by denying healthcare services that are being rendered to the elderly. As cost continue to rise, to maintain affordability, the system will have to limit the cost paid for seriously ill members such as cancer and special needs patients and children. MomsArising.org does not appear to really care for your kids who may develop serious health conditions.
The complaint about the insurance industry using practices such as gender rating is still not addressed in a MomsRising.org-preferred national healthplan. Gender rating exists because women of child-bearing age have higher healthcare costs due to pregnancy. Instead of gender rating being applied to premiums for women, the cost of coverage for a women of child-bearing age will be applied as hire premiums for all others. Where are the cries for reproductive rights from this organization. If women want reproductive rights, then they should be willing and responsible enough to pay for their rights and not have the burdon passed on to others. If women choose to have children, then those cost should be born by women who make those choices.
Thao’s expectation that medical experts — not Congress — will decide what’s in a comprehensive health package, including whether to cover abortion and other reproductive health care is also misinformed as the bill includes a medical panel consisting of politcal appointments such as Rahn Emanuel’s brother, and health economists into positions that will rank citizens based on their ages in terms of whether healthcare services are approved or denied. The youth will be at the front of the line for care, while the elderly and special needs population will take a back seat. This is a typical totalitarian approach to healthcare (e.g. Nazi Germany) that should make every mom cringe.
Ultimately, lower costs will never occur as the program and its benefits will be at the politcal whim of politicians. Congress lacks fiscal discipline and expertise to direct a healthcare system of high quality and low cost. I will only expect our healthcare system to morph into something that looks like our public education system where if you want good healthcare, you will have to pay for it yourself, while paying for everyone elses in the national plan.
House bill (H.R. 3200) is neither fair nor responsible. I would encourage all readers to read the responses of the other healthcare-related articles and see the realities that MomsArising.org is apparently blinded to seeing. I would encourage Thao to take a real look at the bill and explain to all of us in a future blog why she agrees with the controversial, and sometimes catastrophic aspects of this bill. Her talking points are getting old and less believable as we know more about the “reform” she touts.
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daniel Reply:
July 31st, 2009 at 12:48 am
@Chris Johnson, I could not agree more. This health care bill scares me for what it opens the door to. Reduce costs by reducing or eliminating services to the elderly or infirm. I would hate to think what could happen if a woman was pregnant with a child with Down’s syndrome. Would services be eliminated or reduced? The framework is there.
I want to know why AARP is now in favor of this bill. It reduces benefits to seniors by 500 billion. It does not add up for their support.
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Chris Johnson Reply:
July 31st, 2009 at 1:21 am
@daniel, my guess is that AARP is supportive of the congressional bill because they have been cut into the proposed program as a payor for the government plan. They stand to make tens to hundreds of millions administering the Government benefit. It will depend on how many payors will be approved by Congress. Suffice to say that AARP will be in the position to administer claims for significantly more lives than they are currently managing in their Medicare Advantage line of business.
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“With 14,000 Americans becoming uninsured every day…” The reason so many people are losing their healthcare insurance is because they are losing their jobs due to the horrible economic policies of this inept administration.
Now these same administration culprits of this devestated economy want to take control of healthcare in this country. No way!!!!
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