Monthly Archive for December, 2009

Historic Milestone Reached! Bill Needs Improvement…

Published on December 24, 2009 in Debra Ness, Health Care, Reform and Reproductive Health. 1 Comment
Debra Ness

Debra Ness

Today, the Senate took a historic step to fix our nation’s broken health care system by passing comprehensive reform that will cover 31 million more people, prohibit insurance practices that undermine meaningful, affordable coverage, help contain costs, and put us on track to improve the quality and coordination of care.

But this flawed bill must be improved. The anti-choice provisions in the Senate and House bills are bad and worse, and represent a step the nation simply should not take.

It is a sad day when the price of reform is undermining access to a basic health service that America’s women need.

Those of us who spend our lives working to improve women’s health have been deeply shaken as lawmakers allowed reproductive health services to become a political bargaining chip, and as opponents of choice used reform to advance their extreme agenda.

Both the Senate and House bills contain anti-choice provisions that betray the promise of reform for women and would, in practical terms, cost millions of women coverage for basic reproductive health care. This should not stand.

We will work tirelessly to improve the final bill, including by urging conferees to provide more support to the low- and moderate-income families that will now have to purchase coverage.

We must strengthen the final bill by maintaining strong delivery and payment reforms, ensuring greater affordability and meaningful benefits, and guaranteeing effective market reforms that prohibit the discriminatory practices that have put affordable, quality health coverage out of reach for millions of women and families.

We see today’s vote, and the eventual enactment of this bill, as a beginning rather than an end.

The true test of reform’s success will depend on whether it delivers on the promise to expand access to high quality, affordable care; dramatically improves quality and care coordination; gives us better value for our health dollars; and puts us on track to get costs under control. We see implementation as key, and making our health care system work for the most vulnerable patients is essential.

And we look forward to the day when women’s health is no longer bargained away.

Our elected leaders’ work will not be done until those goals are achieved. And we will count on you to stand by our side.

It’s a resolution for the new year that we must all keep!

Wal-Mart’s Demerit Practice Makes Me Sick

Published on December 16, 2009 in Steffany Stern and Work & Family. 2 Comments
blog.photo.steffany.stern

Steffany Stern

Given the recent news about Wal-Mart’s sick days practice, we all may want to think twice about shopping there this holiday season—which regrettably overlaps with cold and flu season.

Because the breaking news on Wal-Mart’s practice is, well, sickening: as The New York Times recently reported, “At Wal-Mart, when employees miss one or more days because of illness or other reasons, they generally get a demerit point. Once employees obtain four points over a six-month period, they begin receiving warnings that can lead to dismissal.”

The article goes on to quote workers who felt pressured to go to work even when they were sick, including one who was sick with—you guessed it—the dreaded H1N1 virus!

Unfortunately, that makes complete sense: in this economy, with family budgets stretched to the breaking point and scores of workers vying for every job opening. Workers are simply too anxious to do anything that could jeopardize their paychecks or their jobs.

Wal-Mart’s practice is indefensibly bad for workers, their families, and our public health.

That’s why the National Partnership for Women & Families is joining with our allies at MomsRising.org, and our other partners, in the Demerit Wal-Mart campaign. We’re helping build a movement of thousands and thousands of people who are standing up to Wal-Mart until the company changes its short-sighted practice. It’s Wal-Mart and its executives who need a demerit badge, not its workers.

>>Give Wal-Mart a demerit badge of its own by clicking here!

Now, I know that Wal-Mart seems like an all-too-easy target for complaints from workers’ rights advocates. But really, they’re making it tough to ignore their actions.

Beyond our concerns for Wal-Mart’s workers, and our public health, we’ve got our eyes on Wal-Mart because it’s one of the largest private employers in the country. With about 1.4 million employees, and locations all across the nation, Wal-Mart often sets the standard for other employers. Which means we can’t let them off the hook when they’re not doing right by their workers or their customers. We have to urge Wal-Mart to fix this practice—sooner rather than later. And we have to let not only Wal-Mart, but all employers know that this kind of practice is unacceptable.

The National Partnership is particularly alarmed about the impact Wal-Mart’s practice has on women.

Women make up 72 percent of Wal-Mart’s workers, and since women still perform many of the caregiving duties for their families, they are disproportionately at risk for punishment or even firing under policies like this one.

The National Partnership is working to pass a national standard of paid sick days that workers can access without fear of punishment: the Healthy Families Act. But until the day we win that national standard, we are calling on standard-bearing employers like Wal-Mart to step up and change their ways.

To learn more and send Wal-Mart its own demerit badge, visit www.demeritwalmart.com.

Health Care Reform Matters to Older Women

Published on December 7, 2009 in Campaign for Better Care, Debra Ness, Health Care and Reform. 0 Comments
Debra Ness

Debra Ness

Let’s be clear. As both caregivers and patients, women bear the brunt of shortcomings in our health care system – high costs, poor quality, and fragmented, uncoordinated care. 

That’s because women are the primary users of health care, and we continue to use more health services as we age.

It’s also because, in most cases, we are primary caregivers for our families.  We coordinate care for our spouses, parents and children, and often, at great cost to ourselves, we fill in the gaps when the system fails and care is poor quality or uncoordinated.

With the finish line in sight on health reform, everyone needs to take a close look at what the House and Senate bills will do, not only to expand coverage and contain costs but also to improve the way care is delivered.  We should look particularly closely at whether these bills will provide higher quality care for older women, who are more than half of Medicare beneficiaries and 70 percent of those aged 85 and older.

The good news is that the House and Senate bills both contain a number of measures that will improve the way we pay for and deliver health care.  These quality improvement measures are vital to preserving and protecting programs like Medicare for the long term, and containing costs and improving efficiencies overall.

For example, both bills move us toward a system that links payment to better quality and better coordinated care.  This means we can start paying for health care based on value and better health outcomes, rather than paying based on the number of services or tests performed. This is good news for anyone who has a loved one struggling with illness or health problems. People who navigate the health system know that their loved one needs the right test or treatment at the right time – not an abundance of repeat or erroneous services that don’t provide answers or make them better.

Earlier this year, we talked to caregivers around the country about their concerns with our health care system.  Poor care coordination and a lack of communication among doctors were foremost on their minds.  That’s because they’ve seen first-hand how these problems lead to dangers and waste from bad drug interactions, repeat tests, misdiagnoses, and more.

Both the Senate and House bills also introduce new models of delivering health care that are specifically designed to improve coordination and reduce events like preventable hospitalizations and readmissions, which are all too common now.

Because passing legislation only begins the work to fix our broken health care system, these bills allow us to test new models over time so we can find out what works best and continuously build on our success.

Recently a distinguished group of consumer advocates, economists and analysts issued a letter praising the Senate’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for its payment and delivery reforms.  I was proud to coordinate and sign that letter.

Older women have a huge stake in turning our health care system around, and ensuring that it serves them and other vulnerable populations better.  If we can make the system work for them, we can make it work for everyone.

We’re closer than ever to the reforms we need, but victory is not assured.  We need to be certain the final legislation includes the key provisions that will improve care coordination and put patients first.  

Balancing the need for change with ensuring that we do change right is the key to sustainable reform.  As the Senate debates the specifics of reform, we must all fight for policies that will provide higher quality, better coordinated, and more affordable care for everyone.