Vote to Repeal Health Care Law Still Looms

Had not the horrors in Arizona taken place this past weekend, today, the US House of Representatives would have staged a largely ceremonial but still dangerous vote on the repeal of health care reform. Ceremonial because even if the vote had passed the House, it wouldn't have passed the Senate (where Democrats still hold a slim majority); dangerous, because it continues to lay the foundation for a repeal of these laws at the state level and "dismantling the law piece by piece."

That would spell real trouble for millions of low- and middle-income people -- many of them women, children and people of color -- who would once again find themselves shut out of the health care system if the repeal takes place.

For women, the stakes in this debate are incredibly high. As our friends over at Womenstake, the National Women's Law Center blog, noted:

Repealing the law will return us to the days when women were treated like a pre-existing condition. Insurance companies will be allowed to drop coverage when an enrollee gets sick and deny women coverage if they’ve had a C-section, breast or cervical cancer, or received medical treatment for domestic or sexual violence. Repeal will keep 11 million women from receiving subsidies to help them buy affordable health insurance and prevent 4.5 million low-income women from becoming eligible for coverage through Medicaid.

Consider that just the tip of the iceberg. Our recent grantee Raising Women's Voices -- a leading voice on the importance of health care reform to women -- published a useful fact sheet on the benefits women gained from health care reform in 2010, and just highlighted a few more women friendly policies that will go into effect in 2011, if nothing changes. These include:

• Lowering prescription costs for seniors (many of them women);
• Providing free preventive services, such as vaccinations and cancer screenings, for seniors on Medicare; and
• Requiring insurers to give us rebates if they don't spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on medical care.

But if repeal efforts gain any foothold, these benefits -- along with others like the requirement that new insurance plans provide preventive health care and screenings (such as pap smears and mammograms) for free -- would be gone with the wind.

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The Verdict Is In: Stimulus Funding Kept Rising Poverty at Bay

If there was ever any doubt that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) had a positive impact on the economy and those facing grave economic insecurity, a new report indicates that those doubts can now officially be put to rest.

Recent analysis of data from the US Census Bureau shows that thanks to the temporary expansion of our social safety net under ARRA, more than 4.5 million people were kept out of poverty in 2009 -- making ARRA, "one of the single most effective pieces of antipoverty legislation in decades," according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

For those who struggled most profoundly through this economic crisis -- including women and people of color, who were disproportionately affected by the tanking economy -- we now know these funds irrefutably made a difference, putting more money in the pockets of everyday Americans to keep them above the poverty line and providing vital connections to much needed social services and work supports (think child care, early education, health care and the like). But despite the major wins that ARRA achieved, its effects may end up being short-lived -- thanks to the "natural" expiry of ARRA funds and Conservative efforts to block spending on these important services going forward.

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Weekly Round-Up: Grantees Making Waves Nationwide

Ms. Foundation's grantees have been hard at work over the last few weeks, advancing social justice nationwide. Here's a quick round-up of what a just a few of them have been up to since we last checked in.

• Service Women’s Action Network Executive Director Anu Bhagwati was featured in a Christian Science Monitor article on the pervasive problem of sexual assault and sexual discrimination within the military. Read this important piece: USS Enterprise: Do lewd videos point to deeper problem for military? 

• The Herstory Writers Workshop scored a major victory when it was announced that stories shaped in their women and teen girls prison writing workshop would become required reading for incoming officers in Suffolk County’s corrections academy. Volumes 1 and 2 of the collection, Voices: Memoirs from Suffolk County Correctional Facilities, are now available for purchase online.

• West Virginia Free launched a campaign to gather support for its Healthy Youth petition, which calls on the state to mandate insurance coverage of contraceptives and pregnancy care for teens. And on January 10 (today!), they held a public hearing on the implementation of the state’s health care exchange.

• The National Women’s Law Center issued a call to Tell your Member of Congress to vote NO on the repeal of the new health care law, to ensure that insurance companies remain prohibited from using discriminatory practices in their coverage of women.
  

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Words Do Matter: A Ms. Foundation Statement on the Arizona Shooting

With the rest of the nation, the Ms. Foundation for Women was shocked and horrified by the tragic events that took place this past weekend in Tucson, Arizona. Though we don't yet know the specific motivation behind these shootings, we do know that they took place in a state where violent political rhetoric has become dangerously commonplace. Where violent speech is the norm, violent action inevitably follows; where the value of some lives is diminished, the worth of all life is irreparably harmed. And given Arizona's position as the epicenter of a movement that is anti-immigrant, racist and growing, the events of this weekend may turn out to be not just heartbreakingly predictable, but also just the beginning of a new, increasingly violent political era.

We will wait, along with all of you, to learn more about what compelled the young man responsible for these crimes to act in such a hugely destructive way. But this we know for sure: the culture that he lived and breathed each day -- Arizona's culture; America's culture -- was one that devalued the worth of immigrants, questioned the rights of women, people of color and LGBTQ individuals to live their freest, fullest lives, and put political figures within cross-hairs for elimination. Under those circumstances, it is only a miracle that we don't see actions like his each and every day.

What we all must learn from this sorrowful chain of events is that words -- in that simple old adage -- do indeed matter. They create the world that all of us live in and respond to, sometimes in ways that bring out the best in human nature, and sometimes in ways that bring out the very worst. If we hope to have fewer such days that reduce us to shock over the latter, we must work to build a world where violent rhetoric -- on the political stage, against women, immigrants or any other -- is no longer tacitly accepted as clever verbal volleying. We must once and for all reject the politics of violence, rhetorical and otherwise, because lives, we understand ever more profoundly today, are quite literally at stake.

For those who made the utmost sacrifice in that parking lot, and those still struggling to survive, we -- and our political leaders -- should be able to give at least that much.

Attack on Unions Looms in States

Another day, another attack from the Right on everyday Americans. This time, it's the unions they're after, and with them, the livelihoods, safety and economic security of millions of working people -- including more than 14,000 child care workers in Ohio, who could soon have their right to unionize stripped from them if conservative lawmakers have their way. 

According to an article in today's New York Times, political leaders in a number of Republican controlled states are now promising to take steps to weaken unions and limit workers' ability to collectively bargain -- an effort, they say, to shrink dangerously bloated state budgets.

But their tactics signal a dangerous return to a time before unions were empowered to protect the basic rights of workers, and unbridled corporate exploitation was the norm. Decades of advancement to secure the rights of working families are now on the line, and if their efforts succeed, many women, people of color and low-income workers -- for whom unions remain a vital resource -- are all but certain to find themselves once again vulnerable to unchecked abuse from corporate entities.

Though a number of states are now working on different approaches to curtailing union power, the most draconian set of measures is coming from Ohio, where conservatives currently control the governor's mansion and both houses of the legislature. As The Times notes,

Of all the new governors, John Kasich, Republican of Ohio, appears to be planning the most comprehensive assault against unions. He is proposing to take away the right of 14,000 state-financed child care and home care workers to unionize. He also wants to ban strikes by teachers, much the way some states bar strikes by the police and firefighters.

“If they want to strike, they should be fired,” Mr. Kasich said in a speech. “They’ve got good jobs, they’ve got high pay, they get good benefits, a great retirement. What are they striking for?”

Mr. Kasich also wants to eliminate a requirement that the state pay union-scale wages to construction workers on public contracts, even if the contractors are nonunion. In addition, he would like to ban the use of binding arbitration to settle disputes between the state and unions representing government employees. 

The impact these rollbacks could have on working families cannot be overstated. Without the ability to organize, or the strength of a well-funded union behind them, low- and middle-income workers often have little recourse to defend their rights -- to decent wages, to safe working conditions, to sick leave and vacation time. And if you take the time to think about who fills all those jobs Governor Kasich is planning on barring from unionizing, you'll see that women and people of color -- who make up a large percentage of the teachers and child care workers who will be penalized -- are going to be some of the biggest losers if conservatives win this battle.

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Upcoming Event: Early Childhood in the 112th Congress

Remember how back in December, Congress failed to act on the funding bill that would have spared hundred of thousands of children the tragedy of being cut off from Head Start and other early childcare initiatives for low-income families? Well, if you're interested in learning more about how that happened, and what lies ahead for early child care and education funding in the next legislative session, Ms. Foundation grantee the National Women's Law Center has an opportunity you may want to take advantage of.

Their upcoming conference call, "What's Next for Early Childhood in the 112th Congress," will take place on Thursday, January 13th at 3:00 pm, and will feature commentary on the topic from Helen Blank, Director of Leadership and Public Policy at National Women's Law Center; Danielle Ewen of CLASP; Adele Robinson of the National Association for the Education of Young Children; and Harriet Dichter of the First Five Years Fund.

Register today to participate in what's sure to be an important conversation about the future of early child care and education in America.

Upping the Ante: States Move to Attack Immigrants' Rights, 14th Amendment

Happy New Year! Now that we're refreshed and refueled after a short holiday break, it's time to get back to the business at hand: pushing for progressive change that benefits all -- something that's about to get significantly harder as conservatives harness increased power in Congress and in state legislatures nationwide.

One issue we're sure to be hearing (and talking) much about in the near future is the coming state-level assault on undocumented workers and "immigration reform" -- a battle that will have a particularly severe impact on immigrant women, who now make up the majority of immigrants in the United States.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, at least six states (Georgia, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and South Carolina) are now planning to propose anti-immigrant legislation much like Arizona's maligned SB-1070 bill, which is currently tied up in the courts after being challenged by the federal government and progressive groups. In addition to expanding the abilities of the police to question anyone "suspected" of being undocumented, as the Arizona legislation did, these bills also seek to bar undocumented students from public colleges and universities; allow for seizure of vehicles and property "used to transport or harbor illegal immigrants"; visit severe penalties on businesses that employ undocumented workers; and generally make life hell for anyone who is or aids an undocumented immigrant.

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