Help guarantee Women’s reproductive health care IS standard health care.

Good news on the health care front, health care legislation headed to the Senate floor will include an option for government-run insurance! While this is great news in helping guarantee affordable health care for Americans we cannot rest with this major step. We absolutely must ensure that women’s health care is not left to chance or as an afterthought. A majority of Americans support the public option, let’s work together to guarantee women’s reproductive health care IS standard health care.
One simple way to do this is to keep a constant stream of letters to the editor going into local newspapers around the state, demonstrating that women are strongly supportive of health reform.
Since the introduction of our blog we’ve seen examples of how health care in the US has been less than fair to women. Examples like 8 states, plus the District of Columbia, don’t have laws that bar health insurance companies from using domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. Only 14 states have a requirement for health insurance companies to cover maternity care, and plans that fail to cover this are rising dramatically. (Along that note, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) argued against such coverage, stating “I don’t need maternity care, and so requiring that to be in my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.” To which, yet again, Sen. Debbie Stabenow showed the brains of the bunch by replying dryly, “I think your mom probably did.” Many insurers consider a cesarean section a pre-existing condition and will refuse to cover women who have had the procedure.Women’s health groups are pushing for provisions in the health care reform legislation to dramatically improve the health care and insurance coverage for women. These provisions include banning companies from charging women higher premiums and preventing many of the gender discriminatory provisions discussed above. And the list goes on.
To help ensure women’s reproductive health care IS standard health care we have some very simple volunteer actions you can take right from home that will go a long way in women across the nation getting equal access to healthcare at an equal and affordable price.
Simply contact us at volunteer@prochoiceminensota.org to find out how a couple minutes of your time will ensure women’s reproductive health care IS standard health care.