Our Nurses: Unsung Heroes

National Nurses week just passed and we’re taking a moment to acknowledge the contribution of nurses of all types to our health care system. Nurses are frontline workers who deliver health care to all of those in need. We sometimes forget about their tireless contribution to keep us healthy and mend us when we’re broken. Here’s a neat little graphic on RNs in the US. Unfortunately, some just don’t get their dues.

Courtesy of MyNursingUniforms
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What’s Wrong with this picture?

A prime example of how the religious right is completely out of touch with healthcare for women (which in all of the institutionalized religious orders women have yet to regain equal status as men).

Republicans will do anything to become the new opiate to the masses. Rather than worry about making the country great, they think about making rich people richer, and placate the religious right with bogus hearings like the Republican-led Congressional hearing pictured above. The issue? A hearing discussing the possibility of requiring religious institutions to cover contraceptives in their employee health insurance plans. As you’ll notice, not a single witness testifying is a woman. Continue reading

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Supreme Court to Hear ACA Challenge

The Supreme Court will hear a constitutional claim against the Affordable Care Act in 2012.  Arguments will primarily focus on the law’s individual mandate requirement and accompanying penalties for noncompliance, but will also address the planned Medicaid expansion.  The court decision, expected by June 2012, could have several different outcomes: the law is constitutional as it stands; the individual mandate is unconstitutional, but the rest of the law remains; or the individual mandate is unconstitutional and so integral to the ACA that the rest of the law crumbles.  Alternatively, the court may decide it cannot make a determination until April 2015, when individuals will be first become subject to penalties for not having health insurance and the case becomes “ripe” enough to hear.

Raising Women’s Voices position is one of support for the benefits of the ACA.

More: http://www.raisingwomensvoices.net/raisingwomensvoices-blog/2011/11/15/health-care-reform-goes-to-the-supreme-court.html

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Keep Family PLanning Accessible to All Women

Rather than only some.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephanie-schriock/straight-talk-keep-family_b_1099381.html

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Protect the Healthcare Rights of Women in the 99%? How?

How can you protect healthcare and expand basic coverage for millions of women? Well, first off, if you live in the US you’re not in the 99%. Comparatively maybe you’re in the 99% within the US, but simply living here puts you at least in the top 5% in the world. Yes, that does ignore some very poor areas in the US where there’s more resemblance to Haiti, but when we compare to the world, we’re doing OK.

But we can do better. The point of OWS is the blatant disregard of unbridled capitalism. Capitalism isn’t wrong, but there’s unfortunately no maximum threshold to greed. 100 million is literally not enough if you can have 200 million.

What does that mean for healthcare? Continue reading

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Does Pelosi Get it Right?

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued the following news release pertaining to what she calls a “radical assault on women’s health”. Below are the Leader’s remarks. Continue reading

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Affordable Care Act Protecting Women

Having a baby? Perhaps by C-section? Have 10K sitting around for the hospital bill? Whether you do or don’t, the answer to whether you’d like to pay the 10k yourself is probably, ‘no’.

The Affordable Care Act, which became law last March, no longer permits insurance companies from imposing lifetime dollar limits on essential benefits such as hospital stays, nor can they deny coverage to any child under the age of 19 due to a preexisting condition. Continue reading

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Living at Home Till 26

A somewhat unknown provision in the Obama health care plan is the provision that allows young people to stay on their parents’ health care plan until the age of 26. With a growing number of young adults spending their early twenties with their parents for either financial or education reasons, the move will help reduce costs or add health coverage for millions of young people.

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FDA Guide For birth-control method or devices

the FDA guide at http://www.fda.gov/downloads/ForConsumers/ByAudience/ForWomen/FreePublications/UCM207070.pdf includes information about how to use it, how to get it, the possibility of getting pregnant while using it, potential risks and whether it protects the user from sexually transmitted infections.

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What Happens to Health Care Reforms Has Massive Impact

Affordable health care act changes will unequivocally affect more women in the USA. However, the majority of decision makers are men.

Women are the greatest utilizers of the health care system, as a 2010 report from the Commonwealth Fund tells us. They live longer than men, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has well documented. In fact, women live three decades beyond their reproductive years.

Women also suffer from chronic diseases at a higher rate than men, diseases such as autoimmune disorders, arthritis, depression, and osteoporosis, and these disorders result in higher rates of disability and attendant care.

How we change insurance coverage, access and affordability, whether public or private, will determine whether women receive the care they need.

Continue reading

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