Healthcare Reform Women's Rights Under Attack
March 10, 2023
Healthcare Reform
March 10 2023
Happy Friday Healthcare Advocates
I am so thankful for all of you and for the actions you take to move us towards a universal healthcare system. If there is a topic you’d like to see or help needed, lectures, presentations etc? Please let me know in the comment field at the bottom.
We are lecturing tomorrow at the League of Women Voters Clark County Washington on Reproductive Health and the Law. Here is the presentation.
Clarification - Do Insurance Companies Go Out Of Business With Universal Healthcare? No, They Change
One of our staunch advocates sent me a note yesterday to ask why I mentioned insurance companies in the single payer discussion yesterday and what part they would play.
It is a simple question but the answer has many parts.
Insurance companies are some of the strongest opponents of universal healthcare because the products they sell become obsolete in a single payer Universal Healthcare system so it is important to address their concerns
Single payer means there is one trust fund that handles the payments like Medicare
Almost every country that implements a universal healthcare system (single payer or not) has private insurance companies that offer plans for optional services
These optional services include things like vision care, dental care, private hospital rooms, concierge services (which people pay a bundle for today), and optional procedures like cosmetic surgery.
We have seen insurance companies and others cry to high heaven that universal healthcare will crash stock markets, make economies fail, and drive the country into bankruptcy. None of these things are true and there are 35 industrial countries that have done it and none have that experience.
What really happens is that when the insurance companies offer optional plans they bundle them with auto/life/homeowner/renter policies and they sell more than they ever did. That is exactly what happened in Switzerland, my example yesterday.
I hope that clarifies the matter.
Healthcare Provider Stress
I know we have written about this over and over but I wanted to share a Haiku with you on the subject.
Our health staff are stretched
Mental health is key for all.
Who helps the helper?
- Arin Babakhani
Breathe in (6 seconds) breathe out (6 seconds) repeat 5 times.
Reproductive Healthcare
A new lawsuit in Texas has been filed by 5 women harmed by the Texas anti-abortion legislation. Here is a link to the NPR report. One of the women was denied an abortion even though her pregnancy was not viable and she wound up with sepsis, and continues to suffer the effects. This is what happens when you wait until it is an emergency. Her long term fertility is now at risk.
Another of the mothers had twins and her condition was that if both were left in the womb they would both die. One could be saved, if one of the fetus’ were aborted. Did anyone think about this when writing such hateful legislation?
Here is another problem story from the Guardian today, March 10, 2023. “Republicans Push Wave of Bills That Would Bring Homicide Charges for Abortion”. “The bills have been introduced in states such as Texas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Some explicitly target medication abortion and self-managed abortion; some look to remove provisions in the law which previously protected pregnant people from criminalization; and others look to establish the fetus as a person from the point of conception.”
Got it? While it is not likely that these bills would pass, these people present a clear and present danger to those around them. They seek to deny medical care that saves women’s lives and they seek to relegate women to second class status by identifying women as not capable of making their own medical decisions. This is the same trash that was used 160 years ago by Dr. Horatio Storer to try and make abortion illegal because he wanted to preserve and enhance the Anglo Saxon race and culture in the US.
You can read that as Replacement Theory or White Supremacy, or White Nationalism. It is clear that the anti abortion rhetoric is no more than hate speech and is in no way pro life. It does not belong in the public discourse.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TODAY
RESISTBOT
Text SIGN PGEJQZ to 50409 to send your Congressperson, Senators, and the Whitehouse this message (or use it on the phone or copy and paste it to email - Links are in the resources below)
Women are full citizens and deserve to be treated as such in law.
I want you to pass legislation at the federal level that says
“The state shall not deny or interfere with an individual's reproductive freedom decisions, which includes the individual's fundamental right to choose to have an abortion and the individual's fundamental right to choose to use contraception. “ (SJR 8202 WA-2023)
We all deserve a healthcare system that works for all of us, urban, rural, young and old, from cradle to grave, that does not have bankruptcy or premature death as side effects. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal will be reintroducing her Universal Healthcare bill shortly. I want you to actively support and pass this legislation.
And while we are on the subject, remove the ERA deadline and let that pass into law.
Resources
Contact White House or other federal agencies: usa.gov/federal-agencies
Contact the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
Contact State and Federal Representatives
https://www.commoncause.org/find-your-representative/change-your-address
Contact all members of Congress
By phone: (202) 224-3121
By email: democracy.io
By US mail: Representatives / Senators
By fax: Representatives / Senators
By Resistbot: Resist.bot