Health care reform--what's next?

Dear NWHN members and activists:

This week, when the future of the national health reform effort looks shaky, we're sharing a resource on the topic that we think you might find interesting and useful. The e-alert below is an excerpted from the Raising Women's Voices for the Health Care We Need enewsletter. If you're interested in continuing to receive the RWV newsletter, you can sign up here.

Action Alert

On Jan 27th President Obama will deliver his State of the Union Address. Let’s send him our women’s state of the union message:

We urge him to lead the country to comprehensive health reform this year, but we are deeply dismayed about the prospect of sacrificing abortion coverage in order to pass health reform legislation.

Join Raising Women’s Voices and our partners for a National Call-In Day on January 27th 2010.

Call the White House comment line at (202) 456-1111. You may have to wait a few minutes, but you will be connected to a real, live person who will take your message!

Tell President Obama that women want comprehensive health reform—but it must not roll back abortion rights! Neither the Stupak Abortion Ban nor the Nelson 2-check abortion payment scheme is acceptable.

So, when will we get health reform?

Up until last week, it seemed almost certain that Congress would pass some form of health care reform legislation, and the big questions had to do with whether the reform would be crafted so that it met the health needs of women, of immigrants and of low-income families who might struggle to pay the costs of the newly mandatory health insurance. Though it was hard to unify Democrats in support of a single plan, both House and Senate leaders had managed to do that. When Massachusetts voters elected a Republican to fill the seat that Senator Kennedy had held for decades, the mathematical possibilities for passing a bill in the Senate changed – and as a result the strategy for finishing health reform are now in flux.

Debates over the best way to move forward will continue this week, and advocates will be watching the President’s State of the Union address on Wednesday closely for the leadership and direction they hope to see from the White House. But the answers won’t come just from political leadership – what happens next also depends on what people in communities all across the country who have been fighting for health care reform do next.

We are still committed to getting a strong health reform law enacted. We know that women and our families still need good, affordable health care just as much today as we did before the Massachusetts election. We know that Congress needs to fix the health care mess, not just for our country’s health, but for our economic well-being. And we know that if we don’t deal with these problems now, medical expenses are going to continue to burden and bankrupt our communities and businesses.

We know women and families who are struggling to meet their health care needs and that we don’t have the luxury of quitting just because it got harder. As Congressional leaders consider the best legislative path forward, we have to make sure they know that we’ll work with them to finish reform right – so that women will get affordable health care that doesn’t leave out the comprehensive care and services that we need.

Insurance officials highlight problems with abortion restrictions

While we are waiting to find out which path the White House and Congress decide to pursue to finish health reform, we are making good use of the extra time to make our case against the absurd two-payment provision in the Senate’s Nelson abortion language. Last week, thanks to the hard work of colleagues in the state of Washington and in Connecticut, we got the first sign-ons to our letter from insurance officials to Congress explaining why the Nelson language will likely lead to insurers dropping abortion coverage.

What's next?

Right now, we don’t know what procedure will be used to move a bill forward, or exactly what that bill will include. But we do know that steady, insistent messages from folks like us can keep the pressure on. We’re the ones who have to insist that we still need quality affordable health care. We’re the ones who have to insist that women’s reproductive health services not be singled out for unfair restrictions. Let’s keep on sending our message, even if we can’t always deliver it in person!