Health Care Reform
Every U.S. resident should have access to affordable, quality health care, including birth control and the privacy to make reproductive choices.
Why it matters
The U.S. health care system should provide a basic level of quality health care at an affordable cost to all U.S. residents. Basic care includes disease prevention, primary care (including prenatal and reproductive health), acute long-term care, mental health care, as well as health promotion and education. Health care policy goals should include the equitable distribution of services and delivery of care, advancement of medical research and technology, and a reasonable total national expenditure level.
What we're doing
Over the past 20 years, we have lobbied for health care policy solutions, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA), to control costs and ensure a basic level of care for all. Throughout the health care debates of the past few decades, Leagues worked to provide millions of Americans across the country with objective information about the health care system and its significant reforms. This included organizing community education projects, holding public forums and debates, creating and distributing resource materials, and engaging leading policy makers and analysts.
What You Can Do
Health Care Reform In Depth
In the past year, the League has joined litigation to fight back against the flood of anti-abortion bills that have been put forward across the country.
The US Supreme Court declined to rule on a Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy LWV of the US Board President Dr. Deborah Ann Turner and LWV of Texas President Grace Chimene issued a joint statement in response.
We must continue to work for health justice and ensure the ACA remains the law of the land.
The League signed onto a letter opposing the approval of the TN Medicaid block grant.
LWVUS joined a Public Citizen letter to President Biden asking him to allow low/middle-income countries’ access to COVID-19 vaccines by waiving WTO rules.
LWV of the United States joined partners in filing an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs in a trio of U.S. Supreme Court cases challenging the imposition of work requirements on Medicaid recipients.
The League joined a coalition letter to the Department of Health and Human Services urging an extension of postpartum Medicaid from 60 days after birth to one year after birth.
It is essential that all persons in America have access to affordable health care and that no one be denied coverage after contracting COVID-19.