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
January 20, 2010
By Lisa Codispoti , Senior Counsel, National Women's Law Center There is a lot of Wednesday morning quarterbacking about the reasons for, and impact of, yesterday’s election in Massachusetts. As it relates to health reform, I think that more than a few people are getting it wrong. Regarding those who say that the election was a rebuke of health reform, or that health reform is dead, I would say, they are full of Boston Beans. Here’s why: Massachusetts already has health reform, with an individual mandate, an employer mandate, and, at 97 percent , the highest rate of people with insurance in...
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January 15, 2010
by Lisa Codispoti , Senior Counsel, National Women's Law Center As we’ve discussed here many times before, gender rating is the harmful and discriminatory insurance practice of charging individuals and employers different premiums based on gender. For individuals buying coverage directly from insurance companies on the individual market, we found that women were often charged higher premiums than men. In the group market – where businesses obtain health insurance to offer their employees, gender rating affects the overall premium that a business pays, as insurers often determine a group’s...
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January 14, 2010
by Lisa Codispoti , Senior Counsel, National Women's Law Center We are closer to adopting health reform than ever before in history. Now that the Senate passed their health reform legislation, the next step on the road to reform is for Senate and House leaders to work out differences between their two bills, and then each chamber would vote on the final compromise legislation. And while there are many common provisions between the bills, there are some key differences that the National Women’s Law Center is carefully monitoring and weighing in on to ensure the strongest possible health reform...
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October 30, 2009
By Brigette Courtot , Senior Policy Analyst, National Women's Law Center For most of their lives, women are charged more than men for health plans in the individual insurance market. This is a consequence of “gender rating,” the common insurance industry practice of using gender to decide how much to charge for health insurance. A new NWLC report shows that at age 40, for instance, women are charged as much as 49% more than men for individual health plans. Consider this scenario: a 40-year-old man is charged $250 a month for health insurance, while his twin sister is charged $375 for the...
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October 21, 2009
By Amanda Stone, Volunteer, National Women's Law Center “Nope, we won’t take her.” This is what insurance companies in Florida said when asked whether they would provide insurance coverage to a hypothetical applicant who had survived rape. Let’s back up a few steps. First, who was asking the question? Second, why was the applicant’s history posed as a hypothetical? Third, what can we do to change this dire situation? Chris Turner, a health insurance agent from Tampa Florida, and a rape survivor, was the person asking the question. Chris spoke of her survival story at the National Women’s Law...
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October 20, 2009
By Judy Waxman, Vice President of Health and Reproductive Rights, National Women's Law Center I don’t deserve health care that meets my needs. I shouldn’t demand fairness in my health care coverage. I can’t do anything about it anyway. That’s what the health insurance profiteers want you to think. They aren’t thinking about the mother who is struggling to find insurance because she had a Caesarean section. Not the woman who survived domestic violence and now must face rejection by an insurance company for having a so-called “pre-existing condition.” Not the woman who pays more than a man for...
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September 30, 2009
Written by Julia Kaye , Health Policy Associate, National Women's Law Center Last night, in a “hat-tip” to common-sense and efficacy, the Senate Finance Committee approved an amendment introduced by Chairman Baucus to provide funding for evidence-based comprehensive sex education. The Chairman introduced his amendment as an alternative to an amendment introduced by Senator Hatch, which would restore $50 million in annual funding for abstinence-only programs through 2014. The Chairman and his staff explained that abstinence-only programs would still be eligible for the new pot of teen...
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September 26, 2009
Written by Judy Waxman , Vice President for Health and Reproductive Rights, National Women's Law Center Last I heard, getting pregnant takes two. This morning, in the Senate Finance Committee’s mark-up of the America’s Healthy Future Act, Senator Kyl (R-AZ) introduced an amendment to strip the bill of any requirements that health insurance contain the benefits that people need. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), ever the champion of women’s rights, observed that over 60% of health insurance plans in the individual insurance market don’t provide any coverage for maternity care. We can’t allow...
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September 25, 2009
By Robin Reed, Online Outreach Manager, National Women's Law Center Last night, I went to a goodbye party for a friend who’s changing jobs. Amidst the nostalgic recollections and toasts to her future, we got to talking about some of the logistical problems that come with a change like this. Chiefly, health insurance. Even though my friend is going straight from one job to the next, due to the various schedules of her old and new workplaces, her previous health insurance will cut off a month before her new insurance kicks in. She has asthma, so trying to buy a month’s worth of health insurance...
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August 24, 2009
By Lisa Codispoti, Senior Counsel, National Women's Law Center Besides the US Chamber of Commerce , anyone out there feeling at all bad about the US House Energy & Commerce Committee asking large national health insurers about their finances ? Certainly not I, especially after what we learned about the Wall Street bail out and big institutions that received billions in federal bailouts who in turn were handing out bonuses and continuing with other corporate spending that certainly raised the eyebrows – and ire- of the American public. Various health reform proposals will no doubt have a...
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August 19, 2009
By Brigette Courtot, Senior Policy Analyst, National Women's Law Center Intrigued by the news headline “For macho men, doctor visits are less likely,” I recently checked out a new study showing that men “most devoted to traditional beliefs about masculinity” are considerably less likely than other men to get routine, preventive medical care—such as a prostate exam or a flu shot. Researchers assessed beliefs about masculinity by asking 1,000 men how much they agreed with statements like “When a man is feeling pain, he should not let it show,” and “When a husband and wife make decisions about...
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August 4, 2009
By Nancy Duff Campbell, Co-President, National Women's Law Center - Nancy Duff Campbell is a founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, one of the nation’s pre-eminent women’s rights organizations. A recognized expert on women’s law and public policy issues, for over thirty-five years Ms. Campbell has participated in the development and implementation of key legislative initiatives and litigation protecting women’s rights, with a particular emphasis on issues affecting low income women and their families. The views expressed are her own. - Insurance companies and others who...
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July 28, 2009
Today we are joining tens of thousands of health care advocates to start making history by calling for health care reform that meets the needs of women and their families. Along with all our partners at Health Care for America Now, the National Women’s Law Center is asking health advocates to contact their Representatives to support the House America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200). The House bill (H.R. 3200) will provide quality, affordable, and comprehensive health care. The bill will: End unfair and discriminatory insurance industry practices such as gender rating —...
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July 24, 2009
What really hurts women? Our current health care system. Lisa Codispoti, Senior Counsel This morning ten women members of Congress held a news conference on "how the Democrats' health care legisaltion [sic] will hurt women and affect their day-to-day lives." Written by Lisa Codispoti, National Women's Law Center, Senior Counsel This morning ten women members of Congress held a news conference on "how the Democrats' health care legisaltion [sic] will hurt women and affect their day-to-day lives." The participants were Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA.); Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN); Rep. Judy...
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