Late Saturday night, the House of Representatives voted on the historic healthcare reform legislation that has been heavily debated for the past few months. After long summer months where our legislators went back to their home districts to listen to their constituents talk about their healthcare concerns and where heavy lobbying by supporters and opponents occurred, the House finally voted. 220-215 to pass their version of the Healthcare reform legislation. There was one lone Republican, Anh Joseph Cao from the State of Louisiana who joined the majority of Democrats to vote for the legislation. At least he voted for his conscience and his constituents who continue to suffer from the effects of Hurricane Katrina and lack major medical health coverage. We’re proud to see that he’s a first term multicultural senator who’s standing up for his people.
However, before the celebration can begin, let’s make note of a very important and troubling issue that occurred in the process. The issue of women’s healthcare and reproductive rights including abortions was dealt a severe blow and a giant step backwards. There was wording put into the legislation that includes a ban on private abortion coverage for millions of women and prohibits it in the newly proposed public option. In other words, while abortion is still legal, the means to cover the costs of abortions for women who request it will be denied through their private and government insurance programs. We know that the proponents of the healthcare reform legislation includes many pro-women’s reproductive rights elected legislators and that they felt they had to permit this to happen in order to gain the passage of the overall healthcare reform. However, we cannot let them and opponents of women’s reproductive rights to feel emboldened or “off the hook” for defending our rights.
As women and especially women of multicultural communities who often rely on government assistance to pay for services, we need to have access to reproductive health support and abortion services. Too often, multicultural minority women face extreme economic, educational and physical hardships coming from communities where women’s health and welfare is tramped upon. Women can be physically and sexually abused and fear reporting the abuse to authorities. To take away the option to have abortions by virtually eliminating the ability to receive those paid services, we’re further exposing this large and expanding population to more economic, physical and emotional duress.
We all need to focus our collective signatures on petitions, rallies, and call our legislators to demand support for women’s reproductive rights and to ensure that the final healthcare reform legislation that is placed upon President Obama’s desk contains support for all women to have the right to choose and make their decisions about their reproductive rights. We will be writing and joining in with other national organizations to rally our troops, activate women and men who believe in our right to choose and make sure that Washington DC and the Beltway hears our voices and sees how we will vote in the 2010 elections to support those legislators that support our critical issues.
As the Health Care reform debate is heating up, it’s important to know that the debate and battle is far from over. Despite the media reporting on various opinions on who’s winning and losing, the point is that the need and battle for health care reform is far from over. It’s important for the citizens and taxpayers of our country to speak up and talk to their national legislators who represent them to let them know how they feel. Your legislators need to hear about your plight and how you want them to represent you.
This is the best time for citizen advocacy to be brought to new generations of citizens and multicultural communities who may not have participated in the past.
Posted in Lead Article on 08/13/2009 10:36 am by Mable Yee
Reforming Health Care is a critical topic that is being discussed, debated and analyzed across the country. As our elected officials return to their communities to discuss the proposed Health Care reform with their constituents, they are encountering an energized population of citizens who feel both supportive and critical of reform. The issues, facts and data is often distorted, mis-communicated and compromised by different special interest groups who are promoting their own perspective and initiatives. While that is the American way and everyone has the freedom to speech, the issue remains that affordable and universal healthcare is not a reality in our country today. President Obama and other groups are focusing on the facts and ensuring that people learn to separate between fact and fiction.
One of the groups who are trying to help people understand that the current health care system needs reform is focusing on the profit motive behind the current Health Care system. The video “Sick for Profit” produced by Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films shows stories of everyday citizens who have health care coverage and what they’re encountering from one health care provider. When they ask for critical coverage for their families you’ll hear the impact when they are denied coverage. Regardless of how you feel about the Health Care reform situation, we all owe it to ourselves to pay attention to the facts and to let our elected representatives know how we feel about our current health care system. It’s critical that they hear from you directly. You can send emails, attend Town Hall meetings, go to websites but it’s important that you speak up and let them know how you feel. If you don’t, then those people who do show up, speak up and write emails will ensure their voices are heard and you may not get the health care system you feel you and your family deserves.
Now that the August recess has started and our elected legislators are going home to meet their constituents to discuss the issues, it’s our time for citizen advocacy to push into high gear. Health care reform and the Public Option is a high priority for our nation and for the millions of us who are poorly served by the existing system. We share the opportunity to shine a spotlight on our elected officials to support reforming the broken health care system. Many of the legislators are playing political football with our health care while our costs continue to spiral upwards, more people are being laid off and losing existing healthcare coverage and millions more are facing a future without health care coverage. Meanwhile many of the legislators are being courted by medical, insurance and health care industry lobbyists to stall or kill health care reform so that they can continue to profit from the existing broken system.
It’s exciting to see numerous grassroots and groups organize advertising media campaigns, phone call programs and participation at Town Hall sessions to voice their opinion and support of health care reform and the Public Option. While adversaries try to skew the media and put out misleading information to put doubt and fear into people’s minds, many others are fighting back. A new TV ad featuring a business owner who just had his costs increased 42% by his insurance provider asks point blank of his elected representative, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska if he is supporting health care reform and the public option or is he sitting on the fence. He goes further to reveal that his elected legislator has taken over $2 million dollars from corporate lobbyists whose special interests support blocking health care reform so that they can continue profiting from the existing broken system. It’s a great ad and campaign to let our legislators know that we’re watching them, demanding support and letting them know that if they don’t support the wishes of their voters, that it will affect the way they vote in upcoming elections. If our officials don’t represent our best interests, then they don’t deserve to be voted back into office.
We’ll be reporting on more interesting campaigns and issues like this in the months ahead.
If you believe in putting pressure on our elected officials to support key initiatives you care about, then feel free to sign the petition at the end of the video and send it around to all your friends. Mable
Good health care is not a privilege. With 47 million Americans uninsured and the battle over Universal Health care at a fevered pitch, we all have to step in and help get a Universal Health care bill passed. Let’s remember, Health care reform isn’t just about getting insurance for the uninsured. It’s about improving the cost and coverage of insurance for the majority of people who do have health care insurance. During the month of August, there will be huge battles waged by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to prevent health care reform and to ensure that they can continue to reap huge profits at our expense.
We need to help mobilize our communities to understand how the Universal health care plan affects our families and communities. We need to call our legislators, sign petitions, and put pressure on our elected officials to get their support. President Obama is fighting our battle for us and calling on each one of us to let our legislators know how we demand support for affordable health care for everyone. Many of our legislators are treating health care like it’s a political football, or a game they’re playing to leverage their power. Reach out to your friends and families and together let’s make the Health care change happen now. Let’s talk to our college students, family members and community groups and ask them to get involved. We will be continuing a series of articles to keep you abreast of these issues and ways that you can take personal action and get your voices and votes counted!
If you want to do something now in August, go to: http://my.barackobama.com/CommitAugust and find out what Organizing for America is doing in your community and sign up to attend an event. Let’s all make Health care reform our priority!
We are launching an exciting new column featuring stories and lessons learned from multicultural women leaders like Gloria Steinem, Dolores Huerta, Yuri Kochiyama, Helen Zia, Aileen Hernandez, Maria Teresa Kumar and many more. We have access to many prominent women leaders who have accomplished so much in the past few decades breaking the glass ceiling, making great strides for all women and we need to learn from them. Where else can we go to hear their stories, learn their hard earned lessons and pass that knowledge on to all of us? Engage Her will be interviewing these women to learn about their personal stories, challenges and hear examples of the difficult situations they faced as they went on their journey for leadership and achieving goals that women never dreamed of doing years ago.
We will offer the unique perspective of talking to these women about the individual challenges they faced as multicultural women leaders in their respective fields. We’ll explore the influence of the cultural, social, political, economic and gender related restrictions that were placed upon them by their community and society. We want to learn how they navigated their difficulties to triumph and learn as much as we can to apply to our everyday lives. We are at a special place in the time of history when we have the richest and most diverse group of women leaders that have achieved so much in the past few decades. However, we need a place where we can share this information efficiently and broadcast it as widely and globally as possible so we can benefit from their triumphs and mistakes.
We’ll also interview young and emerging women leaders who are utilizing the newest Social Media and technology tools available through the Web and learn how they are tackling the new challenges facing them. Engage Her wants to connect women, share our stories and be motivated to make changes in our lives that will help all of us create a bigger and better community. We hope you’ll send us your suggestions for women to interview, comment on our site and join the Engage Her team. We are bringing women and men from different multicultural communities, bridging multiple generations and connecting us online and face to face through our Engage Her Circles. You can start up your own Engage Her circle in your community with your friends and colleagues. Click here for more information about Engage Her Circles in your area. Enjoy! Mable
