Talking to HHS about Essential Health Benefits

RWV’s Southeastern Pennsylvania coordinator, Rebecca Foley, was there yesterday as officials from the Department of Health and Human Service stopped in Philadelphia on their latest “listening tour.” This time, the topic was the Essential Health Benefits package that must be covered by all health plans that are offered in state insurance exchanges.  HHS is seeking comments from stakeholders, including consumers, on how to go about defining that package of benefits.

Rebecca was among more than 100 people, including advocates, doctors, insurance companies and brokers, who attended this session to provide their input.  Rebecca urged HHS to establish a set of benefits that will help ensure that women and our families have access to health insurance that provides meaningful coverage of services we need to stay healthy.  She called on HHS to establish a system that is transparent, robust, evidence-based, non-discriminatory and can meet the needs of diverse populations.  Rebecca encouraged other members of the local Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of Raising Women’s Voices to attend as well so women’s health needs and concerns were very well represented and voiced at this session.

HHS will listen to you, too, if you can get to one of the remaining listening sessions on the benefits package. What should you say, if you go?  E-mail us at info@raisingwomensvoices.net if you would like some background information. 

Here are the locations and dates, as well as information on how to register:

• New York: Nov. 14, from 10 to noon at 25 Federal Plaza, Suite 3835, Manhattan.  RSVP to Joynetta.Bell@hhs.gov by Nov. 9 (today)
• Kansas City, MO: Nov. 15, from 10 a.m. to noon at Bolling Federal Office Building, 8^th Floor SSA Conference room, 601 E. 12^th Street.  RSVP to Cindy.Cento@hhs.gov by Nov. 10 (tomorrow)
• Atlanta, GA: Nov. 16, from 10 a.m. to noon at 61 Forsyth St., SW, Suite 5B95.  RSVP to ORDAtlanta@hhs.gov by Nov. 14.
• Denver, CO: Nov. 18, from 9 a.m. to noon at 999 18^th St. , South Terrace, Suite 400. RSVP to Ezra.Watland@hhs.gov.
• San Francisco, CA: Nov. 21, from 3 to 5 p.m. at 90 Seventh Street, Suite 5-100.  RSVP to region9ord@hhs.gov.  No cut-off date for RSVPs has yet been announced.
• Seattle, WA: Nov. 17, from 2 to 5 p.m. at the Jackson Federal Building, 915 2nd Ave, South Auditorium, Seattle, WA.  No RSVP information has been released yet.

Forty Years Of Influencing Women’s Health Around The World

This year The Boston Women’s Health Book Collective celebrated the publication of its seminal book “Our Bodies, Ourselves” 40 years ago.  This book ignited changes in health care delivery in the US and worldwide. In the early 1970’s women knew very little about our bodies. Doctors had all of the information and told patients what they wanted them to know. We did not have access to our medical records and there was almost no health information available. Doctors were in charge of our health made no attempts to share information with us which made them function like gods among us. One woman reported that her physician told her that her pregnancy was none of her business. Don’t worry about it leave it up to him. So you can see, the publication of this book that provided us with valuable, never before heard of health information was manna for our hungry souls.

OBOS came at the beginning of the Women’s Health Movement and became our Bible and still is today. We applauded the questioning of medical authority; we welcomed the opportunity to become active knowledgeable health care users and quickly moved from being passive receivers. We were hungry for knowledge and OBOS provided us information on just about every health topic women needed. Its information presented in a straightforward manner became our trusted word. This book alone has done more to transform our health care delivery that any other publication. Many women still consult OBOS to get information about recent diagnosis and treatment courses.

The further brilliance of the BWHC is shown in its sharing of its information and process with women world-wide. The organization has over 22 national partners and assisted women in the publication of book in more than 25 languages. Miho Ogino of Japan voiced the sentiment of women world wide when she stated “their publication in the early 80’s changed the way Japanese women talked and felt about their bodies.”

The publications of Our Bodies, Ourselves continue to inform us, unite us with women around the world and demonstrate the powerfulness of sharing information. It’s exciting to speculate what he next 40 years of publications will bring.

We can hardly wait.

This blog is part of the #HERVOTES blog carnival.

The 99% need Health Care Reform

Emotions are running high down in Zuccotti Park. Occupy Wall Street has unified people around the need for change in our society. Protesters are sick of not being able to find a job, not being able to afford a home, and not being able to stay healthy. Check out the clip below of some interviews with protesters at Occupy Wall Street.

This is what health care reform is going to change. Quality, affordable health care is within grasp. Look at the gains we have already achieved! Children can’t be denied insurance due to a pre-existing condition. Young adults under 26 can stay on their parents’ insurance. Starting in August 2012, women on new insurance plans will have access to contraception with no additional cost.

How’s that for better healthcare? We need to be excited about how health care reform is playing out, and we need to protect it so we can secure the health we will get once our health care law in fully implemented.

Visit RaisingWomensVoices.net and become educated about how health care reform has already worked for you. Learn about how you can protect reform that comes under fire everyday. Demand that what you helped pass back in 2010 is not stopped by those who don’t understand. This isn’t something that can be ignored. Just ask the Occupiers; let them tell you their stories and see how needed these changes are.

How Much Would You Pay To Have Your Colon Looked At?

OK, I admit, that’s a pretty distasteful headline.  It could have been worse, though, couldn’t it?  No one likes to think about having a long tube inserted through their rectum up into their intestines, which is what it takes to look at the colon.  And that long tube is only part of the yucky story.  To be ready for the tube, you have to stop eating and create medically induced diarrhea by drinking vast quantities of sickly sweet goop.

So, if you’ve heard the messages about cutting your risk of colon cancer in half by going through the screening exam, managed to overcome your perfectly normal squeamishness and made an appointment, how much would you be willing to pay?  Would you be willing to pay $1000?

No, that’s not a typo.  Depending on your insurance plan and where you live, your co-payment alone could be nearly $1000.  Double that amount if you have a high deductible plan.  I don’t have the exact statistics on how many people actually hand over their credit cards and pay four figures to have their colon looked at, but I’m pretty sure it’s not very many people.

So what does all this have to do with women’s health?  Well, first of all, we have colons, too, and even though breast cancer rightly gets lots of attention as the most-common cancer among women, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer.  So if all it took was getting over our squeamishness, most women over 50 would have had their colons looked at.  But that high cost gets in the way. 

Unfortunately, the same arithmetic applies to many other screening and preventive health services that women of all ages need.  Tried paying for an HPV vaccination lately?  That’s not cheap.  How about the co-pay on a mammogram?  Also not cheap.  And don’t get me started about the outrageously high co-pays for some brand name oral contraceptives.  Would you believe $40 a month?  All of these co-payments get in the way of women receiving the services they need. 

But we’re getting help removing these barriers to screening and preventive services.  Starting earlier this year, and continuing for the next 18 months or so, all health insurance plans will have to begin covering screening and preventive services with no extra fees.  That means no co-payment and no deductible.  The regulations covering services that are specific to women, such as screening for sexually transmitted infections testing pregnant women for diabetes and covering contraceptive counseling and services, don’t officially take effect until next August. 

Watch for RAISING WOMEN’S VOICES Countdown to Coverage campaign early next year to help you learn more about these new benefits and how you can take advantage of them.  In the meantime, the first wave of regulations apply to all new plans issued after August 1, 2011.  Guess what?  Your health insurance might already fully cover that colon cancer screening.  So what are you waiting for – go get that colon looked at.  

This blog is part of the #HERVOTES blog carnival.

Raising Our Voices For The Health Coverage Women Need!

It’s hard to know what to pay attention to in the flood of health reform policy jargon and acronyms, but here’s one new term that we think it’s important for women to understand:health insurance exchange.  What is an “exchange”? It will be a new way for those of us who don’t have health insurance to find more affordable coverage than we can get now.

When the Affordable Care Act goes into full effect, state health insurance exchanges will begin to play a huge role in shaping health care coverage for millions of people.  An estimated 14 million women will qualify for free or very low-cost coverage under the expanded Medicaid program and another 14 million of us will be eligible for federal subsidies to help us buy private health coverage through state exchanges, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation

How can we make sure these state insurance exchanges operate by rules that work for women and our families? Raising Women’s Voices and our regional coordinators across the country have been holding conversations about this important topic over the last two months. We started with some key questions:

• Who will decide what kind of coverage a woman will be able to get from the insurance exchange in her state?
• Will it be difficult for her to enroll?
• Will there be somebody who can help her sort through her coverage options and make a good choice?
• Will she be able to use this coverage to see trusted personal physicians or go to family planning clinics in her neighborhood?
• Will there be providers who speak her native language, if it isn’t English?

Informed by those questions and our discussions, we came up with a few conclusions about what a woman-friendly health insurance exchange would look like that we can share with you here.

Creating A Woman-Friendly Health Insurance Exchange

1.  Exchange governing boards must be independent and representative.  A majority of the people serving on the boards of state insurance exchanges should be consumers and consumer advocates, including people knowledgeable about women’s health, public health and addressing health disparities.  Nobody connected to an insurance company should be making decisions for us about what kinds of health coverage we will be offered.
 
2.  Insurance plans in the exchanges must include trusted women’s health care providers.  Plans must include sufficient numbers of family planning clinics and other essential community providers of health care. There must be health providers available who speak the languages of the people they are serving.
 
3.  People must be able to get clear information about their coverage choices and help enrolling in a health plan.  The exchange website must be easy to use, and provide the information we need about cost, services covered and whether our trusted health providers are in an insurance plan’s network.  There must be a call center to answer our questions, including late at night and on weekends. Some of us are going to need in-person help from community-based organizations and women’s health providers designated to serve as consumer “navigators.”

4.  HHS must set rules for abortion coverage that ease administrative burdens for insurers and ensure women can get the coverage we need without confusion and delay.  Such rules are needed to ensure that the ACA’s abortion requirements will be implemented in a way that is consistent with the law, the goals of the ACA, Congressional intent and current industry practices.  HHS should prevent the imposition of complex and unnecessary burdens on people who are trying to get health insurance.

We’ll be sending these ideas to the policymakers who are setting up ground rules for the state exchanges, but we still want to hear from more women.  Do you have an idea about what a woman-friendly health insurance exchange would look like?  Send it to us at INFO@RAISINGWOMENSVOICES.NET!

This blog is part of the #HERVOTES blog carnival.

Good News for Women’s Access to Preventive Care Services!

Amidst the recent reports that health insurance costs for families have continued to rise and that there are almost 50 million people in the United States without health insurance, there was a glimmer of good news this week about improvements in the benefits covered by insurance and some trends that are very promising for women’s future health!    

A September 2011 survey of the health benefits offered by employers shows the optimistic future for insurance coverage of women’s preventive care services.  Many of the improvements in health insurance coverage that the  Affordable Care Act (ACA) promises – like requiring insurers to cover proven preventive health services without additional charges, like co-pays and deductibles – will only be available to people enrolled in new health insurance plans; plans that existed before the ACA became law will be exempt.  But, the survey showed that this past year only 56% of workers with health insurance were enrolled in a health plan that is exempt.  This number is much lower than what HHS had projected and will continue to drop over time, meaning more people than initially estimated will have access sooner to preventive care without having to make co-payments. 

As we approach August 2012 -- when insurers will be required to include a robust list of women’s preventive health services to the care that they cover with no cost-sharing -- more and more women will experience improvements in their insurance coverage, including comprehensive contraceptive care without co-payments, as a result of the ACA. 

For an explanation of the preventive health services for women that will be required as of August 2012, please see the Raising Women’s Voices fact sheet.

Tell HHS: Don't deny contraceptive coverage to any woman!

That’s the message we need to send immediately to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. HHS is seeking comments until September 30 on its proposed religious employer exemption from the contraceptive coverage mandate in the Women’s Preventive Services rule issued in August. The exemption is narrowly crafted to apply to churches, synagogues, mosques, seminaries and religious orders.  It would not apply to religious hospitals or social services agencies the way HHS has written this proposed exemption. But it is unclear if parochial schools, Bible camps and some other religious entities could deny contraceptive coverage to their employees. Catholic Bishops pressuring HHS to exempt Catholic hospitals, charities The nation’s Catholic Bishops have launched an intensive campaign to pressure HHS to broaden the religious employer exemption so any religious employer – including Catholic hospitals and Catholic Charities – could refuse to include contraception in its employee health insurance.  In New Orleans, for example, thousands of Catholics attending Mass this past weekend were asked by Archbishop Gregory Aymond to write to HHS urging that the exemption be rewritten to exempt more religious employers.  Official Catholic teaching prohibits the use of contraception. But the group Catholics for Choice says most Catholics in the pews do not support the Church hierarchy’s position, and research shows that 98 percent of heterosexually active Catholic women have used a modern method of birth control. The exemption as proposed by HHS would deny birth control coverage to women working for diocesan offices and teaching in Catholic schools, the group fears.  Broadening the exemption as the Bishops are demanding would deny this preventive care to many thousands more women, including both Catholic and non-Catholic employees of these large institutions. Write to HHS now! We must raise our voices loud and clear in opposition to a religious employer exemption that would deny any woman the contraceptive coverage that she wants! In our formal comments to HHS, RWV will be opposing the proposed religious employer exemption and arguing that it fails to meet the standard of ensuring that all women can get the contraceptive coverage they want – giving employers the power to decide for women.  That’s unacceptable!  We will include a recommendation that if HHS decides to include some exemption for religious employers in its final rule, it must limit the impact by allowing it only for “ministerial employees,” such as priests, and it should make sure that no spouses or dependents of those ministerial employees will be denied the insurance coverage they need. What should you say in your comments to HHS? Here is our recommended message. You can send it to HHS (with any personal comments you would like to add) by going to RWV’s action page. “Preventive care keeps women healthy!  Requiring insurers to cover preventive health care like contraception, breast feeding support and screening for domestic violence and HIV -- without charging co-pays -- makes these services affordable for more women.  And it helps women stay healthy. Employers should not be able to deny a woman this coverage. Medical experts agree that this preventive health care is necessary for all women and that contraception is preventive care. Religious employers should not be given the power to leave contraceptive coverage out of their insurance plans because it will exclude some women from getting the care they need to be healthy, have healthy pregnancies and have healthy babies.  Let a woman make her own decision – she knows her body and beliefs better than her bosses do! Please remove the proposed religious employer refusal provision from your Women’s Preventive Services rule.”   l: Our mailing address is: Raising Women's Voices 475 Riverside Dr. New York City, NY 10115 Copyright (C) 2011 Raising Women's Voices All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is: Raising Women's Voices 475 Riverside Dr. New York City, NY 10115