Why It Matters
The US health care system should provide all US residents with a basic level of quality health care at an affordable cost. Basic care includes disease prevention, primary care (including prenatal and reproductive health), acute and long-term care, mental health care, and 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.
The League of Women Voters believes that public policy must affirm the right of privacy of the individual to make reproductive choices and that every individual should have access to quality health care at an affordable cost.
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 basic 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 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.
Fifty years ago this week, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments into law thereby creating two of our most influential federal programs – Medicaid and Medicare.
The League joined an amicus brief in King v. Burwell that focused on the impact of the Affordable Care Act on women’s health, arguing that the tax subsidies are essential to women’s health and the ACA’s continued viability.
The Affordable Care Act has brought us closer to what we should be: a nation that ensures affordable, quality healthcare for all. Today's decision reinforces the bedrock of our healthcare system.
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