Lisa Codispoti, Senior Counsel

by Lisa Codispoti, Senior Counsel, 
and Brigette Courtot, Policy Analyst, 
National Women's Law Center

On Monday, President Obama released his health reform plan in advance of Thursday’s bipartisan health reform summit. The President’s plan bridges some of the differences between the Senate and House health reform bills, but largely builds from the Senate bill (see NWLC's comparison of key provisions of the House and Senate bills). Now we wait to hear from Republicans what concrete proposals they will offer to address our nation’s health care crisis (although many of their proposals have been included in the President’s proposal). But what does all this mean for women and access to comprehensive, affordable, quality health care? 

At the start of this debate some time ago, the National Women’s Law Center issued “8 Questions to Ask About Health Reform Plans” to guide advocates in analyzing whether health reform proposals meet the needs of women. Below, we’ve used these questions to analyze President Obama’s proposal, and will do the same for the Republican proposal once they release it. These questions can be a helpful guide for women’s advocates as they watch the Summit (you can watch it live Thursday at 10am) -– to decide for themselves if different health reform proposals will truly provide access to affordable, high quality, comprehensive health care. 

Whatever the outcome of the Summit, make no mistake: Congress must move forward to quickly adopt comprehensive health care reform. Women and their families can no longer wait. 

by Lisa Codispoti, Senior Counsel, 
National Women's Law Center 

There is a lot of Wednesday morning quarterbacking about the reasons for, and impact of, yesterday’s election in Massachusetts. 

As it relates to health reform, I think that more than a few people are getting it wrong. Regarding those who say that the election was a rebuke of health reform, or that health reform is dead, I would say, they are full of Boston Beans. 

Here’s why: Massachusetts already has health reform, with an individual mandate, an employer mandate, and, at 97 percent, the highest rate of people with insurance in the country. As of last fall, a full 79 percent of Massachusetts residents supported their reform plan. And health reform legislation, like in the Senate bill, expressly contemplates allowing states like Massachusetts to continue along. 

And to those who would say health reform is dead, I would say, hold on!! Will it be harder? Yes -- there is no denying that both substantively and politically, it will be a tougher road to hoe. But as we have repeatedly said, if health reform was easy, we would have done it decades ago. 

In my mind, the key reason why health reform is not dead -- and cannot be dead -- is that the 31-million-plus reasons why we need health reform did not disappear with yesterday’s election. Simply put, yesterday’s election did not end the problems of people who lack health care, nor did it end unaffordable health care, nor insurance discrimination, nor gender rating, nor insurance coverage that doesn’t meet the needs of women.