Health Care Reform
Health Care Reform
Every US resident should have access to affordable, quality health care, including birth control and the privacy to make reproductive choices.
Why It Matters
The US health care system should provide a basic level of quality health care at an affordable cost to all US 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 policymakers and analysts.
LWV is mobilizing partners with Planned Parenthood Action Fund in the Bans Off Our Bodies campaign for reproductive justice. We're proud to partner with leaders in the abortion rights space to promote everyone's right to bodily autonomy.
The restoration of reproductive rights is a central tenant in our Women's Inequality Day campaign.
The League of Women Voters of the United States joined a sign-on letter urging Congress to reject any appropriations bills that contained riders restricting access to essential health care including abortion, contraception, and gender-affirming care.
The Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of federal funding for most abortions. As a result, most people enrolled in public health programs cannot use their health care coverage to pay for abortion services. This poses a particularly devastating barrier to people living with low incomes, including the more than 16 million women of reproductive age enrolled in Medicaid.
Jefferson City, MO — The League of Women Voters of Missouri praised a Sept. 25 judicial decision overturning the Secretary of State’s deceptive ballot language for a reproductive freedom initiative.
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