Safeguarding Good Medical Care for Families Across the States
This article is the second in a
series looking at the key issues to be addressed in CPA’s 1998 Women-led
Economic Policy Agenda.
The concerns and issues that spurred the move in the early
1990s toward a national health care standard have not gone away. While the
health care debate has subsided, anxiety about high quality, accessible health care
still exists for most families and individuals, as seen in CPA’s
Women’s Voices ’96 survey.
Many women look to the states to safeguard minimum health
care standards for themselves and their families.
Providing states with the tools to ensure
compliance with these standards is an integral part of health care
reform as a whole. It is also a key component of CPA’s Women’s Economic
Policy Agenda, to be introduced during the 1998 state legislative session.
State attention is focusing on "drive-by" baby deliveries and
mastectomies, in which women have been hospitalized in some cases for less than
48 hours after a procedure. Last year, Illinois state Representative
Rosemary Mulligan, a member of the Flemming Fellows Advisory Board, led the
fight in Illinois to pass a bill requiring a mini
mum 48-hour stay for women who have given birth. Similar
initiatives for deliveries, mastectomies or both, are underway or passed in
Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Oregon, Oklahoma and North Carolina.
"There has been a huge change in Oklahomans since 1995, where
they have said we will not tolerate the de-valuing of our families — and we
[lawmakers] follow that in our leadership" said Oklahoma state
Representative and 1995 Flemming Fellow Laura Boyd, who co-authored "drive-by"
legislation on both baby deliveries and mastectomies
in 1996 and 1997 respectively. "Concerns
that used to be labeled fringe or women’s issues are now
public health issues."
Concern is also registering on the degrees insurance companies may
go to exclude people from coverage or raise health premiums —
particularly in this age of technology and readily available information. In North
Carolina and Arizona, bills passed to end the use of genetic testing to
discriminate against potential health policy holders. Similarly, motions are
underway to prohibit insurance companies from discriminating against victims
of domestic violence by labeling this a
pre-existing condition. Last February, CPA coordinated the five-state
introduction of domestic violence insurance discrimination bills. To date, 22
states have laws against this on their books.
CPA’s women-led Economic Policy Agenda will be made up of model
legislation and best practices that utilize women’s solutions for obstacles to
economic self-sufficiency, entrepreneurship, health and security and family and
work issues. For more information on how you can be a part of CPA’s
Economic Policy Agenda, contact Anne Mosle ([email protected]), Director of
CPA’s Women and the Economy program.
