It was quite a week for health care. (Please keep reading for important info on a sign on letter for prenatal care.)
First, on Tuesday, President Obama signed the health insurance reform legislation into law. Last night, the final amendments to that legislation were passed by the House, completing the long and arduous process of passing this legislation. It is an enormous accomplishment that will help tens of thousands of Nebraskans gain coverage, will help our small businesses, and will provide serious consumer protections to everyone in Nebraska. We’ll provide more details in the coming weeks because in some ways, the work has just begun. But, for now, we should celebrate this historic moment when we finally, as a nation, have decided that the health of all citizens should be a priority and that we have to create opportunities to ensure people have access to the care they need.
Unfortunately, at the same time we were watching those happy events unfold at the national level, we were still fighting for prenatal care for all unborn children in the state. Efforts to revive a legislative solution to fully restore Nebraska’s long-standing policy on prenatal care seem to have failed, although legislators are trying to work out a new solution to eek out some coverage for a few more women.
In the meantime, Governor Heineman could restore prenatal care at any time administratively.
Our friends at Voices for Children in Nebraska and BabiesBornHealthy.com have put together a sign on letter to Governor Heineman asking him to restore Nebraska’s long-standing policy of ensuring prenatal care for all the low-income mothers and babies in this state.
Please sign on to this letter at http://babiesbornhealthy.com/?p=196 and express your support for prenatal care to ensure that all babies in Nebraska have a chance at a healthy start in life. So far the letter has 1,050 signatures and we would like to have at least one for every one of the 1,551 women and unborn children who are going without prenatal care today. Sign on DEADLINE is SUNDAY, March 28th at 5:00 p.m.