News release
Orange County Moms Tell Representative Sanchez: It’s Time to Declare Support for Health Care Reform
March 20, 2010
Lisa Lederer, 202-371-1996
With One in Four Californians without Health Insurance, and House Vote Tomorrow, MomsRising Urges Representative Loretta Sanchez to Support Reform
MomsRising, the online and on-the-ground grassroots organization with more than a million members nationwide and 200,000 in California, today issued an urgent call for Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez to support health reform when the House of Representatives votes tomorrow. “This legislation may not be perfect, but it offers the promise of expanding health insurance coverage to 32 million more people, and making health insurance affordable for the middle class and for small businesses,” said Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, Co-Founder and Executive Director of MomsRising.org. “This is our best chance in decades to cover millions of mothers and families who are currently without the coverage and care they need. Improving health care is a top issue for America’s moms. They are counting on Representative Sanchez and her colleagues to vote ‘yes’ on this bill tomorrow.”
MomsRising members have made more than 600,000 constituent contacts in support of health care for all: Turning out on-the-ground for meetings at congressional offices in nearly every state; sharing thousands of stories with elected leaders to let them know just how difficult the current health care situation is for families; spreading the word on social networks; educating elected officials online via emailed letters; making phone calls to leaders from home; sharing personal members’ messages that MomsRising volunteers are delivering in D.C. to congressional offices; pounding the halls of the U.S. Capitol with a volunteer army of moms delivering messages in support of reform; and more.
Health reform would rein in insurance company abuses and greatly increase the affordability and security of health insurance by:
- Strengthening consumer protections and reining in insurance company abuses.
- Giving millions of people the same types of insurance choices that members of Congress have through a new competitive health insurance market that keeps costs down.
- Holding insurance companies accountable to keep premiums down and preventing denials of care and coverage, including for pre-existing conditions.
- Improving Medicare benefits with lower prescription drug costs for those in the ‘donut hole,' better chronic care, free preventive care, and nearly a decade more of solvency for Medicare.
- Reducing the deficit and stopping waste, fraud and abuse, ending overpayments to insurance companies, and paying for quality over quantity of care.
New information from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research finds that nearly two million Californians lost their health insurance during 2008 and 2009 years characterized by a deep recession and mass layoffs bringing the total number of uninsured in the state to more than eight million. That number represents a 25 percent increase in the number of uninsured since 2007. Today, nearly one-quarter of adult Californians lack health insurance.
“Health reform is the number one issue for millions of California moms, in Orange County and around the state,” Rowe-Finkbeiner added. “We urge Congresswoman Sanchez to do the right thing for her constituents, the state and the nation tomorrow by supporting reform.”