Stories tagged with “Kathleen Sebelius”

On Anniversary Of Title IX, Sec. Sebelius Says: Budget Cutbacks ‘Shouldn’t Mean Rolling Back Equality For Women’

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Jun 23, 2012 at 12:14 pm

This Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of Title IX, a gender equality in education effort from the 1970s. At an event at the Center for American Progress, Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged the country still has a long way to go before it achieves true gender parity.

Sebelius spoke about the huge progress achieved in 40 years toward a more balanced education system, particularly in the world of sports. But she also noted that women still face some discrimination, both in how they are currently treated at schools, and how they may be de-prioritized because of underlying sexism:

We know that women still get fewer opportunities to play sports in high school and college, fewer scholarship dollars, and often settle for very inferior facilities and equipment. And especially in challenging times, we need to make sure budget cutbacks don’t mean rolling back the equality that’s been achieved for women. But as we acknowledge the challenges ahead, we need to celebrate how far we’ve come.

Watch it:

Women are still lagging behind educationally in some areas, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM programs). Currently, women hold far fewer STEM degrees — only 17.9 percent of computer science degrees go to women — and are only 24 percent of the STEM workforce.

And Sebelius is right that women’s programs are targeted in budget cuts. Since women tend to be marginalized and under-represented in politics, programs that benefit women are too often the first on the chopping block. Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget, for example, slashes education, nutrition, and health care assistance for women.

()

Health

Obamacare Grant To Create 5,600 Jobs, Treat Millions At Local Health Centers

By Guest Blogger on Jun 21, 2012 at 9:05 am

As the Affordable Care Act continue to be implemented, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Wednesday that $128.6 million in new grants have been awarded to local health centers. More than 200 clinics received grants to help expand access to health care for 1.25 million patients, and the grants are expected to fund 300 new clinics and create 5,600 jobs by infusing “critical dollars into health centers and their surrounding communities.”

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the grants should be seen as symbolic of Obamacare’s impact more generally, adding, “the health care law is making our community health centers stronger and ensuring more Americans get the care they need.” And HHS underscored the connection between the health care reform law and the expansion of quality health care:

As community-based and patient-directed organizations, health centers are well positioned to be responsive to the specific health care needs of their community. Through the Affordable Care Act’s commitment to expand access to high quality health care for all Americans, these grants will support establishment of new full-time service delivery sites. [...]

Since the beginning of 2009, health centers have added more than 25,300 new full-time positions. The awards announced today will infuse critical dollars into health centers and their surrounding communities, enhancing health centers’ ability to serve more patients and creating thousands of jobs across the country.

But if the Supreme Court rules that Obama is unconstitutional, then HHS will have to “unravel several programs like these that have distributed money to parts of the healthcare system,” potentially endangering access to health care for millions of Americans.

–-Nina Liss-Schultz

()

LGBT

HHS Keeps Up Progress On LGBT Health Concerns

By Kellan Baker, Guest Blogger on Jun 20, 2012 at 10:45 am

Yesterday was a busy day for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. In the morning she spoke at Howard University Hospital for the release of the Human Rights Campaign’s 2012 Healthcare Equality Index, before joining a call at noon to highlight a report outlining her department’s LGBT health objectives for this year.

Numerous themes from the HHS list of LGBT health objectives for 2011 made a repeat showing on this year’s list, including LGBT cultural competency training for health care providers, equal treatment of LGBT youth and families, and funding opportunities that explicitly include LGBT communities. Happily, this year’s objectives are more specific and concrete than last year’s, demonstrating the department’s intention to make measurable progress on all of its commitments.

Still, significant progress remains to be made in several areas that were for the most part not explicitly addressed in the report:

Removing transgender exclusions from health insurance plans

Advancing gender identity data collection

Including LGBT communities in cultural competency standards

Formally designating the LGBT population as a health disparity population

Trans Health Exclusions

One of the most blatant examples of discrimination against members of LGBT communities is the persistence nationwide of health insurance policy exclusions targeting transgender individuals. These exclusions, found in many private plans and in the government-financed Medicare and Medicaid programs, deny transgender people coverage for health care services that are routinely covered for nontransgender individuals, including pelvic exams, mammograms, and mental health services.

HHS recently released regulations governing the health insurance exchanges, which are marketplaces that will sell affordable, comprehensive coverage in every state starting in 2014. These regulations prohibit insurers participating in the exchanges from discriminating on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. However, forthcoming regulations regarding the benefits exchange plans must offer need to clarify that transgender exclusions violate these nondiscrimination protections and will unfairly restrict access for transgender people to the same standard of essential coverage other consumers will enjoy.

Gender Identity Data

Though the report recommits the department to its 2011 objective of increasing the number of federally supported health and demographic surveys that collect and report data on sexual orientation and gender identity, another area of concern is a lack of progress on the development of a gender identity question. Initially promising signs such as two roundtables of HHS officials and transgender health and research experts in 2011 and early 2012 have lapsed into silence, and it remains unclear whether HHS will achieve its self-stated goal of increasing the number of federally funded surveys that collect the data on gender identity needed to better understand the health disparities facing the transgender population.

Cultural Competency Standards

The department maintains a set of standards, the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards, that guide health care organizations and providers in serving diverse communities. Some of the standards are mandatory for recipients of federal funds, while others are recommended for adoption as mandates by federal and other accrediting agencies. While the CLAS Standards describe general principles of respect for diversity in health care, they do not yet follow the example of national standard-setting bodies such as the Joint Commission in explicitly defining patient diversity to include LGBT communities. The updating of the CLAS Standards to define communities at particular risk of discrimination in health care settings would reinforce the report’s goal of promoting LGBT-inclusive cultural competency tools to make sure all patients are treated with the respect and care they deserve.

Health Disparity Designation

Finally, the report made no mention of LGBT inclusion in the health disparity population designation overseen by the National Institute for Minority Health and Health Disparities. Despite evidence of LGBT health and healthcare disparities from nationally recognized sources such as the Institute of Medicine, Healthy People 2020, the Office of Minority Health, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the institute has not formally designated the LGBT population as a health disparity population.

Until sexual orientation and gender identity are formally recognized as factors associated with health disparities, researchers, service providers, and others working to address LGBT health disparities will continue to have severe difficulty building a robust research agenda and attracting the resources necessary to support their efforts. Designating the LGBT population as a health disparity population is an important part of promoting a comprehensive understanding of health equity for diverse disadvantaged communities and focusing attention on the additional investments needed in efforts to eliminate health disparities not just for LGBT communities but across the board.

2012 has been an exciting year for LGBT health so far. In their efforts to blaze new paths to health, well-being, and equality for LGBT people and their families, Secretary Sebelius and her team at HHS have much to be proud of. Continued leadership and progress on these objectives is something LGBT communities can look forward to.

()

LGBT

Health Secretary Calls For Worldwide LGBT Healthcare Access

By Zack Ford on May 21, 2012 at 5:20 pm

Today, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius spoke before the World Health Assembly on the topic of of the LGBT community’s access to healthcare around the world. Echoing State Secretary Hillary Clinton’s remarks last year at the United Nations, Sebelius said that “everyone has a basic right” to healthcare and barriers that discriminate against people for their sexual orientation or gender identity must be broken down:

SEBELIUS: This can take the form of outright discrimination, like when people are given substandard care or are turned away from a hospital or local clinic because they happen to be lesbian or gay.

Often, the barriers are more subtle, like when doctors and nurses don’t take the time to understand the health needs of their LGBT patients

In other cases, health care providers violate patient confidentiality and disclose the sexual orientation of their LGBT patients. This can put LGBT people who are not “out” in their communities, at risk of discrimination, social exclusion, physical violence, or even death. And it leads many LGBT people to risk traveling to distant care facilities in order to prevent this from happening.

Because of this, LGBT populations are often invisible and unacknowledged. But they are there, in considerable numbers, in every country in the world.

Sebelius also acknowledged that she’s all too familiar with these barriers “because they still exist in my own country.”

()

Health

Insurers Will Pay $1.3 Billion In Rebates To 16 Million Consumers Because Of Obamacare

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on May 11, 2012 at 1:20 pm

Thanks to a provision of the Affordable Care Act, 16 million consumers and businesses are expected to receive about $1.3 billion in rebates from health insurance companies, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The medical loss ratio rule requires insurers to spend at least 80 to 85 percent of premiums on patient care; if not, then the companies owe rebates to their customers. As Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius explains, “We want to know that most of what we are paying for is for health care, not advertising, executive bonuses or overhead. It’s pretty simple: we want to get a good value for our premium dollars.”

The Kaiser estimates show that rebates add up to $541 million in the large employer market, $377 million in the small business market, and $426 million for those buying insurance on their own. Roughly one-third of people nationally who bought individual insurance plans can expect a rebate, but the percent of consumers expecting rebates ranges from almost zero in some states to 86 percent in Oklahoma and 92 percent in Texas. “This study shows that asking insurance companies to put more of their premium dollar towards patient care rather than administration and profits is not only popular but also effective,” said Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman.

Insurance brokers unsuccessfully tried to block this regulation, and Florida officials asked the federal government for less stringent requirements that would have likely reduced the rebate amounts in that state. But if this rule had gone into place in 2010, 15 million people would have seen $2 billion in rebates that year.

()

NEWS FLASH

Catholics Protest Sebelius Over Contraception Rule At College That Offers Birth Control | The Cardinal Newman Society, a conservative Catholic organization focused on college students, is protesting Georgetown University’s decision to invite Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to give the commencement address for the college’s Public Policy Institute. In a petition, the society president Patrick Riley, writes that it is “scandalous and outrageous” that Georgetown invited Sebelius, “a publicly ‘pro-choice’ Catholic who is most responsible for the Obama administration’s effort to restrict the Constitution’s first freedom — the right to free exercise of religion.” Catholic leaders have consistently attacked the Obama administration’s new regulations that will expand access to contraception. However, Georgetown President John DeGioia announced that the college will continue to provide birth control coverage for its employees.

Justice

No, Kathleen Sebelius Does Not Need A Legal Memo To Ignore False Anti-Contraception Legal Arguments

By Ian Millhiser on May 2, 2012 at 11:30 am

Conservative media outlets are downright gleeful over a recent exchange between Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius that culminates with Sebelius stating that she did not receive a legal memo addressing whether the Obama Administration’s recent effort to expand access to contraception is unconstitutional.

GOWDY: When you say you balance things, can you understand why I might be seeking a constitutional balancing instead of any other kind?

SEBELIUS: I do, sir, and I defer to our lawyers to give me good advice on the Constitution. I do not pretend to be a constitutional lawyer.

GOWDY: Is there a legal memo that you relied on?

SEBELIUS: I relied on discussions.

GOWDY: At least when Attorney General Holder made his recess appointments, there was a legal memo that he relied on. Is there one you can share with us?

SEBELIUS: Attorney General Holder clearly runs the Justice Department and lives in a world of legal memos.

Watch it:

Gowdy, who, among other things, appears confused about which executive branch official has the power to make recess appointments, seems quite proud of the fact that he made Sebelius admit that she never received a written document explaining why the Constitution permits regulations ensuring that working women will be able to access birth control — and that she instead relied on oral conversations with attorneys. There’s a very good reason why Sebelius would not need such a memo, however. The primary conservative argument against contraceptive access — that allowing it somehow violates the constitutional rights of religious groups who object to contraception — is completely meritless and hardly requires a lengthy memo. I recently dismissed it in just two paragraphs, for example:

There is nothing in the Constitution saying that a person does not have to comply with the law simply because they object to it — if this were actually true, anyone could immunize themselves from paying taxes simply by claiming a moral objection to doing so. Nor does the Constitution allow people to violate the law simply because they have a religious objection to it.

The seminal Supreme Court opinion establishing this point was written by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia — who, coincidentally, is Catholic. Scalia explains that “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a ‘valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).’” In other words, so long as a law does not single out Catholics (or any other faith) for inferior treatment, the law applies universally to everyone.

It would be a tremendous waste of limited resources to have the government employ armies of lawyers whose job is to anticipate every false legal argument that might be thrown against a new regulation and draft memos explaining why those false theories shouldn’t prevent the regulation from being implemented. Perhaps Mr. Gowdy thinks it would be a good use of the American people’s taxes to create such a stimulus program for government lawyers, but there are much better ways for America to spent its money.

On a more serious note, however, there is something very ominous about Gowdy’s exchange with Sebelius. The Constitutional case against contraceptive access is meritless, and any competent lawyer would tell Sebelius as much in just a few sentences. The same, however, can also be said about the case against the Affordable Care Act. If the Supreme Court strikes down health reform, it will send a clear message to every judge in the country that the law does not apply any more — at least when enough conservative officials object to the law.

In other words, Sebelius may need to hire an army of rabidly conservative lawyers just to tell her which frivolous legal arguments she must heed regardless of the fact that they have no basis in the Constitution.

()

NEWS FLASH

Over 100 Health Groups Call For Better Chronic Health Care Coverage | One hundred and four health organizations sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius yesterday calling for increased coverage of treatment for chronic illnesses. The letter urged Sebelius to revise the Essential Health Benefits (EHB) prescription standard to cover more drugs for patients who may not respond to one form of treatment. Currently, EHB plans allow for coverage of one drug in each “theraputic category,” a level the signatories called “wholly inadequate.” Instead, the groups asked for treatments to be covered if they are recommended by medical professionals and in an “otherwise covered category,” one that is not completely excluded from coverage. The letter also called for federal intervention to ensure states participate in the exchange programs, noting that some Governors, like Florida’s Rick Scott (R), have refused to participate at all in the process of forming exchanges.

-Zachary Bernstein

Health

Sebelius Promises Florida Will Have An Insurance Exchange

By Guest Blogger on Mar 21, 2012 at 3:10 pm

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has refused to implement the Affordable Care Act in his state, claiming, “It’s not the law of the land. I don’t believe it will ever be the law of the land.” If the law is upheld by the Supreme Court, however, Scott could end up with no say in the matter.

Yesterday in Miami, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made it clear that Florida would have to abide by the law and form a health insurance exchange, which would allow Floridians to shop around for insurance plans, by 2014. If Florida does not take action to form an exchange by then, Sebelius promised, the federal government will do it for them:

“What we have said to states is: ‘[What] we need to know at the beginning of 2013 is whether or not you intend to do this,’” she explains. “We are responsible in the law for putting together a federal exchange for Floridians.”

State lawmakers have been warned that if they fail to follow the law, the federal government will step in and create an exchange for them.

“They will have a deadline to meet if they choose not to move ahead with the state based exchange,” Sebelius says. “We will launch an enrollment process and a federal exchange for the citizens of Florida.”

Scott has made no secret of his disdain for the law, even as it offers much-needed aid for the state and its residents. Rather than accept grant money to pay for disease prevention and other programs, Scott turned the money down supposedly on principle. (He did, however, accept $2.5 million for abstinence-only sex education.) Meanwhile, Florida has the third-highest rate of uninsured residents in the nation and three of the ten highest spending metropolitan areas, on top of a $3.7 billion budget deficit.

Sebelius noted that, if the federal government established an exchange in 2014, grants would start coming into the state. Until then, however, the federal government “cannot put the services together that they are turning down…unfortunately, it’s the most underserved Floridians that are the victims of that choice.” That could change within two years, but that is too long a wait for many.

-Zachary Bernstein

()

Health

Bachmann: Federal Government Could Force A One-Child Policy

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Mar 7, 2012 at 5:10 pm

Michele Bachmann argued last night that the Obama administration could institute a one-child policy under the Affordable Care Act. Appearing on Glenn Beck’s online television show Real News From The Blaze, Bachmann launched into a long monologue on why she thinks the health care reform law could negatively impact women and explained that “the federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family.”

When anchor Amy Holmes pressed her on that point, she quickly backed away from singling out the Obama administration, and instead talked of a generic “health care dictator” who may institute such policies:

BACHMANN: Women have a lot to lose under Obamacare If you want to go into specifics, what the government gives, the government can take away. It certainly isn’t beyond the pale to think, in light of Kathleen Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary — she said that it’s important that we have contraceptives because that prevents pregnancy, and pregnancy is more expensive to the federal government. Going with that logic, according to our own Health and Human Services Secretary, it isn’t far-fetched to think that the President of the United States could say ‘we need to save health care expenses — the federal government will only pay for one baby to be born in the hospital per family, or two babies to be born per family.’ That could happen. We think it couldn’t?”

Watch it:

()

Stories tagged with “Kathleen Sebelius”

On Anniversary Of Title IX, Sec. Sebelius Says: Budget Cutbacks ‘Shouldn’t Mean Rolling Back Equality For Women’

Obamacare Grant To Create 5,600 Jobs, Treat Millions At Local Health Centers