Week In Review June 23, 2017

Everyone will feel the pain of the GOP's healthcare plan regardless of where they live and their economic level. But women will feel the burden even more.

The plan eliminates Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood. Women who count on Planned Parenthood clinics for well visits, maternity care, cancer screenings, birth control, pap smears, or breast exams will be left with no where to go. This will impact more than 1 million women of all ages, especially those in rural areas whose only clinic is Planned Parenthood. 

States will be able to choose what "essential services" they cover under health insurance. They could decide to exclude many women-focused services like maternity coverage, contraception, mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, well-woman visits, breast pumps and domestic violence screening and counseling.* Insurance through private employers could follow as well. 

It is disgraceful that a country like ours, the most developed, advanced nation in world, fails to provide affordable access to healthcare for all. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), made healthcare "the cause" of his life. He said he had hoped that we would "break the old gridlock and guarantee that every American - north, south, east, west, young, old - will have decent quality health care as a fundamental right and not a privilege."

The GOP plan, written in secrecy by 13 male Senators, pushes our country further from that goal, jeopardizing everyone's health and weakening the well-being of our nation.

The Senate wants to pass this bill before the July 4th recess. We must work to stop this bill. Your calls are needed - and they work. Call your Senators. Tell them to vote no. Women's health is not a political issue. Remind them that women vote. 
 
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*Source: Time