Thao Nguyen is the Director of Outreach for Health and Reproductive Rights. She oversees the outreach efforts for the Center's work on health care, reproductive rights, and judicial nominations. She helped manage the successful health campaign Being A Woman Is Not A Pre-Existing Condition and is the campaign director of This Is Personal. Previously, Ms. Nguyen managed the policy and advocacy work at different HIV/AIDS and environmental organizations. Her education has mainly come from her random traveling experiences, which includes sharing a truck with ducks around Vietnam and getting caught playing hide-and-seek in the House of Lords during off hours. She also received her undergraduate degree in English from the University of California, Irvine and a graduate degree in International and Comparative Legal Studies, with a speciality in Human Rights Law from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Thao spends her free time espousing the marvels of eBay and stressing out about making her yoga classes on time.
Thao Nguyen
Thao Nguyen is the Director of Outreach for Health and Reproductive Rights. She manages the outreach efforts for the Center's work on health care, reproductive rights, and judicial nominations. Previously, Ms. Nguyen managed the policy and advocacy work a
Blog Post List
September 13, 2011
by Julie Vogtman , Senior Counsel, National Women's Law Center The Census Bureau just released new data on poverty in the U.S. in 2010. Though 2010 marked the first full year of the recovery that began when the recession officially ended in June 2009, the number of Americans living in poverty increased last year: the overall poverty rate rose to 15.1 percent, up from 14.3 percent in 2009. Unfortunately, the numbers aren’t looking any better for women and families: Poverty among women – already much higher than poverty among men – climbed to 14.5 percent in 2010, the highest rate in 17 years...
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December 9, 2010
By Danielle Garrett , Policy Fellow If you’ve been reading our blog, you’ve probably heard how excited we are about releasing the 2010 edition of Making the Grade on Women’s Health: A National and State-by-State Report Card . Hopefully, we’ve sparked your curiosity and you’re wondering what the Report Card’s findings are. While the Report Card shows that the nation has a long way to go in improving women’s health , it also gives you a look at a better future under the new health care law. The Report Card shows that the nation is still far from reaching important women’s health goals, and...
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December 7, 2010
by Judy Waxman , Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights On Thursday, we’ll be releasing the 2010 edition of Making the Grade on Women’s Health: A National and State-by-State Report Card , the fifth women’s health report card in a decade-long series assessing the overall health of women at the national and state levels. When NWLC and its partners launched the Report Card project to evaluate the state of women’s health across the country, it was in part as a response to the failure to pass comprehensive health care reform in the mid-90s. With a grim outlook for health care progress...
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December 1, 2010
By Judy Waxman , Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights National Women's Law Center Are women in America healthier than they were 10 years ago? Which state and federal policies can help improve women’s health? Join the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) on Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. EST for our special Making the Grade on Women’s Health webinar and find out more about women’s health on the state and national level . Making the Grade on Women’s Health: A National and State-by-State Report Card 2010 is the fifth in a series assessing the overall health of women at the...
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November 17, 2010
By Judy Waxman , Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights, National Women's Law Center The process of implementing the new health care law continues this week as a panel of independent experts meet to begin to develop evidence-based preventive health guidelines for women that will be used to determine what preventive services will be covered in all new health insurance plans and provided with no cost-sharing. Under a part of the new health care law that went into effect in September, all new insurance plans are required to cover certain preventive measures like mammograms, pap smears...
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November 16, 2010
by Jasmine Tucker The unemployment situation is dire, especially among those who have been jobless for an extended period of time. Unfortunately, the situation is not likely to get better any time soon—national unemployment in October was above nine percent for the 18th consecutive month and is projected to remain above nine percent throughout 2011. Despite these historically high rates, some members of Congress are considering allowing federal unemployment benefits to expire on November 30th—a decision that would leave more than two million jobless workers at risk of benefit cutoffs in...
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November 10, 2010
by Marcia D. Greenberger , Co-President, National Women's Law Center We all recognize the stereotype of the unmarried father--absent, uninterested, and uninvolved in his kids' lives. But the cliché that unmarried fathers never have meaningful relationships with their children--just because they aren't married to their children's mother--has never been true across the board, and today in 2010, it's less accurate than ever. That's why it's of such concern that federal immigration law setting U.S. citizenship rules for children born abroad imposes tougher standards for children born to unmarried...
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November 4, 2010
If you are like me, by now, you’ve been subject to a deluge of cable news punditry about what the election results mean. Not to be out done, politicians have used acceptance speeches, concession speeches, and basically any appearance that might include a podium and microphone to give their reasons for what the election results must mean. Like someone who had a great first date and never got asked on a second one, everyone is parsing every last moment to figure out: why. And for some unexplainable reason, opponents of reform have decided to misguidedly spin this as a referendum on the new...
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October 21, 2010
By Steph Drahan , National Women's Law Center Can you picture it? Neither can I. But for pregnant inmates in many states, this is how motherhood begins: with their legs shackled to metal hospital bedposts. For Shawanna Lumsey, this isn’t an exercise in imagination, but in fact her experience when delivering her son, Jordan. My name is Shawanna Lumsey and I was shackled when I gave birth to my son. I’ve made some mistakes in my life, but no expectant mother, no woman, no person should ever be treated the way I was. Eight years ago, I was convicted of credit card fraud and received a six-year...
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October 18, 2010
By Brigette Courtot , National Women's Law Center “Optional maternity coverage has a very unfavorable impact on our bottom line…[t]his coverage option will be eliminated in stages.” This is just one of many illuminating quotes from insurance company leaders that can be found in a set of memos released last week the House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce (E&C). The Committee collected information from the four largest for-profit insurers in the country as part of their investigation of two common individual market practices: coverage denials for pre-existing conditions...
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September 23, 2010
by Stephanie Drahan and Thao Nguyen, National Women’s Law Center September 22, 2010: You get sick. You go to the doctor. You get diagnosed. Your insurance company drops your coverage when you need it the most. You now find yourself fighting your illness and the insurance company. September 23, 2010: You get sick. You go to the doctor. You get diagnosed. You worry about fighting your illness and your insurance company pays for your care, just like it should. Let me be clear – a miracle has not happened. What has happened is simply that the law now finally works for you. For years, we’ve worked...
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August 12, 2010
by Joan Entmacher , Vice President for Family Economic Security, National Women's Law Center This Saturday, August 14, is the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act. It was President Franklin Roosevelt who signed the bill into law, but it was Frances Perkins , the first woman in the Cabinet, who made it happen. If you have a couple of minutes this weekend, you can mark the occasion by reading (or listening to) her speech in 1960 commemorating the 25th anniversary. She reminisced about heading the Committee on Economic Security that worked to design Social Security in the...
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July 27, 2010
By Stephanie Drahan , Outreach Associate, National Women's Law Center As we like to repeat, in March, an historic health care reform law passed! In September, many of the provisions will start going into effect , including one of the most popular: the “under 26” or dependent coverage provision . This provision allows young adults, who are under 26 and do not have job-based health insurance, to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until they turn 26 . This gives lots of young adults some needed flexibility. They can hold out for that “dream” job. They can take that job that doesn’t offer...
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July 9, 2010
by Brigette Courtot , Senior Policy Analyst, National Women's Law Center So many good things are coming out of our new health reform law that it's tough to keep track of it all! In fact, the earliest benefits are now several months old, like the small business tax credit . The tax credit, which works as an incentive for small businesses to offer (or continue offering) health insurance to their workers, took effect immediately since the credit is available to small businesses for the current (2010) tax year. It's a health reform benefit that is especially important for women, given that: a)...
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July 7, 2010
Today ends my know-it-all days. For the past few months, after the passage of the new health care reform law, friends and family members have come to me as a source of information about what the new health care reform law means to them. Sure, I didn’t have all the answers, but I had the answers at my fingertips (also known as popping into the office of a more knowledgeable colleague). However, www.HealthCare.gov ends my reign as a health care know-it-all in at least one area. Now everyone can find out what their options are for insurance coverage. This new website is the first of its kind and...
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May 13, 2010
by Marcia Greenberger , Co-President, National Women's Law Center This week, President Obama nominated Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the U.S Supreme Court. As we prepare for the Senate hearing on the nomination of this exceptionally qualified candidate, it is important to ask ourselves what difference the Supreme Court makes in the lives of women. Click below to listen to my podcast to learn about the important ways that the Supreme Court has affected the lives of women in this country: Podcast - Women and the Supreme Court You can also watch a recent roundtable I participated in about...
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April 23, 2010
Some things are wrong. Some things are heinous. And then there is Wellpoint. Yesterday, Reuters released an article about Wellpoint’s profit making practice of targeting women with breast cancer. Reducing the lives and well-being of women to a math problem, one of the insurance companies with the worst records of putting people before profit has been using an algorithm to find women who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer to deny their coverage, according to the article. After all the phone calls, the rallies, and the voices raised to fight for health care reform, we are now faced...
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April 7, 2010
April 20th will mark Equal Pay Day—the point in 2010 when the average woman's wages finally catch up with what the average man earned in 2009. And for the third year in a row, we're asking bloggers and tweeters to raise their voices in support of fair pay for women by posting about this crucial issue on Equal Pay Day. Please sign up to Blog for Fair Pay , and help us spread the word! Last year, more than 160 bloggers took part in Blog for Fair Pay Day 2009. You can check out their posts here . The theme for this year’s Blog for Fair Pay Day is, “What would it mean if there weren’t a $10,662...
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March 29, 2010
by Kelli Garcia , Fellow, National Women's Law Center When I was breastfeeding my daughter, I was lucky enough to have a comfortable private space at work to express breast milk and supervisors who understood the necessity of taking breaks. Now, thanks to the recently passed health care reform bill, more working mothers will have similar benefits. Under the new law, employers will be required to provide reasonable unpaid breaks and a private place, other than a bathroom, for mothers to express breast milk. Employers with fewer than 50 employees will be exempted from these requirements if they...
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March 24, 2010
by Jill Morrison , Senior Counsel, National Women's Law Center [The opinions expressed in this blog are the author's own and do not necessarily represent the opinions or positions of MomsRising.org. -Eds.] The National Women's Law Center is an organization that supports abortion rights, so we’ve considered health reform a bittersweet success. The bill that was signed into law yesterday (and the Executive Order regarding abortion) will certainly not advance abortion access. It can be argued that abortion access will actually be harmed by Health Reform if insurers respond by dropping abortion...
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