Medicaid
(And how the NWHN Helped Make Them Happen)
NWHN Policy Advocacy Director Sarah Christopherson provides a top-level overview of the ACA, how it helped women gain comprehensive health coverage, some exciting advances made in the Biden COVID relief package, and what challenges and opportunities lies ahead.
While several big questions remain, we have a good sense now of the rough outline of the final package and its impact on the ACA.
The census produces health data and informs surveys that are important to the health sector, such as detailed population demographics, social determinants of health, and the number of hospitals. The data collected from the census also help determine federal funding for health care programs each year.
Work requirements and other bureaucratic obstacles imposed by states on their Medicaid populations are designed with one goal in mind: make it so difficult to comply with the rules that hundreds of thousands of people lose their health care.
GOP states are rushing to add cumbersome new requirements that will force workers to lose coverage.
Opioid dependency is a bodily adaptation that is likely to disproportionately affect women, because they are more likely to develop opioid dependency in a shorter period of time, compared to men.
Why is getting covered through Medicaid so much harder than Medicare? There are lots of superficial answers but, at heart, the answer is “racism.”
Oral health is essential throughout a woman’s life, and particularly during pregnancy. But far too many women, especially low-income women and women of color, lack access to comprehensive and affordable dental insurance.
Stacks of additional paperwork will cause thousands of working people to lose coverage — by design.