Lessons from health reform activism: Tools and strategies that work

Lois Uttley, MPPCo-founder, Raising Women’s Voices

APHA annual meetingNovember 9, 2010

RAISING WOMEN’S VOICESA Project of

The Avery Institute for Social ChangeThe National Women’s Health Network

And The MergerWatch Project of Community Catalyst

Our goal: ensuring that women’s health needs across the lifespan are identified, articulated

and addressed in health reform

Challenges for women’s healthadvocates in health reform

• Many women’s health advocates had not been part of the health reform movement over the last decade.

• We were unfamiliar with some of the key issues and concepts, and unsure what we would get out of health reform.

• Health reform advocates were wary of us, worried abortion would sink health reform.

RWV’s approach

1. Listen to women about what we and our families need from health reform. Start at the grassroots.

2. Educate ourselves and women’s health advocates about health care reform concepts and terminology.

3. Mobilize women to get involved in broad-based health reform coalitions in their states, become trusted partners whose views can be respected.

4. Strategically influence the development of health reform policies, so that the needs of women and our families are addressed.

Listen: Women’s stories shape our vision

• Held small-group discussions with diverse women: teenagers, young mothers, older women, women of color, immigrants, victims of domestic violence

• Their concerns formed the basis for our “Women’s Vision for Quality, Affordable Health Care for All.”

• This approach grounded all of our policy analysis and strategy in the real-life experiences of women and their families.

Women’s health across the lifespan• Reproductive health a priority, but also..• End to pre-existing condition denials.• Affordability of coverage.• Availability of coverage through all of life’s

transitions, including school-to-work, divorce, job loss, widowhood.

• Help navigating confusing insurance choices and rules.

Educate: Explaining what’s at stake for women in health reform

• 2008 RWV national conference in Boston spotlighted women’s health issues in reform.

• Trained 260 women from 28 states.

Educate: Helping women grasp health reform concepts

• Webinars, calls, presentations

• Crucial during Congressional debate, as proposals kept changing.

• Now focusing on state implementation of health reform.

• Recruited RWV coordinators in 22 states• Formed partnerships with progressive health

reform groups, such as Families USA, Herndon Alliance, Health Care for America Now;

• Provided fact sheets and talking points to women’s health advocates;

• Motivated thousands of advocates through biweekly RWV e-newsletter and active blog

Mobilize: Building and empowering a national advocacy network

Mobilize: Women speak out at RWV forums

• Women tell stories about getting breast cancer and losing health insurance, having family members denied treatment by insurers claiming pre-existing condition exclusions, and many other issues.

Mobilize: Speak-outs held across the nation

• Los Angeles, CA; Chicago, IL; Madison and Milwaukee, WI; Greensboro, NC; Atlanta, GA; Baltimore, MD

Mobilize: Women hit the streets for health reform!

• Joined other health reform advocacy groups in rallies, marches, protests.

• Demonstrated the power of women’s health advocates as a constituency

Mobilize: Teach-ins• RWV and its

coordinators sponsor teach-ins to answer community questions about confusing health reform proposals.

• Stupak abortion ban a particular concern.

Influence: RWV regional coordinators go to Capitol Hill

• Coordinators from around the country gather in DC for strategy meeting

• Visit their members of Congress on Capitol Hill

Back to the grassroots: what we got!• Community sessions tell

women what they and their families get.

• Good news: Young adult ability to stay on family insurance plans; no co-pays for preventive services, etc.

• Bad news: Immigration exclusions, abortion restrictions

RWV in implementation process

• Federal level: Commenting on HHS implementing regulations, with 2 main goals:– Urging swift addition of contraception to the list of

preventive services that must be covered with no co-insurance.

– Opposing abortion ban in Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plans.

Campaign uses women’s stories

• Gathered powerful stories of why women with serious illnesses need abortion coverage to protect their health.

• Created video using actors and posted it on Youtube.

• Viewers send emails urging HHS and White House to lift the abortion ban in PCIPs.

Influencing state implementation

• Training RWV coordinators on what’s a stake for women in Medicaid expansion, state insurance exchanges.

• Coaching them to get seats on state advisory boards and work within broad-based coalitions.

Get involved with Raising Women’s Voices

• Visit our website at www.raisingwomensvoices.net

• Sign up for our Action Alerts and e-newsletter by contacting info@raisingwomensvoices.net