California NOW

We Can't Let the Foxes Rule the Hen House

By Linda Long, Action VP
California NOW

We have heard a lot about the war on women all over the country but my goal in this blog is to scare the crap out of you and get you to pay attention to how the war on women is being waged right here in California.

Over the last two years, Governor Brown has been making it abundantly clear that he wants to use the Shock and Awe of a massive budget shortfall to distract women by making unbelievably devastating cuts to social welfare programs, schools and universities. Those distractions have been necessary so that he can use his office to fundamentally restructure state government which is exactly what he’s been doing.    He is doing it without input from those most affected, especially women.  And he is doing it right under the nose of our legislators.

He is not alone.  He is being helped by Catholic hospitals and Kaiser, and their company union SEIU Health Workers, Anthem Blue Cross and the California Endowment.

 Governor Brown has been using budget trailer bills to ram his agenda through quickly and without consulting women.  In case you don’t know – trailer bills typically have little oversight.  That’s exactly why he’s using them.

Some of you may ask why.  Why would he do this?  He gave us the reason when he proposed the elimination of the Commission on the Status of Women last year.  In that proposal, Governor Brown said that he didn’t believe gender equity was one of the core functions of government. 

He’s now set his sights on healthcare, proposing to remove the Office of Women’s Health and have it become part of an Office of Health Equity.

Every task force, every department is tasked with ensuring they create access to health and they eliminate disparities in health.  Obviously, that’s a good thing - as long as women are included.  The problem is, if you don’t believe that gender equity is a core function of government, you don’t include women.  And that’s what has happened.

California NOW and a diverse coalition of health and equality advocates were working with the legislature to ensure that women, especially women of color, were represented both in the Office of Health Equity which is where the work of the Office of Women’s Health will be placed and the Health in All Policies Task Force.

And we were making progress.   Through intensive lobbying and a lot of late nights, we were able to craft the language which changed the Office of Health Equity into one where women could not be eliminated….where the Health in All Policies Task Force couldn’t ignore us.

Perhaps we were making too much progress because last week Governor Brown announced a new task force. The “Let’s Get California Healthy Task Force.”  Its first meeting is set for June 15th.

The stake holders the Governor thinks should be in charge of a ten year strategic plan from that task force are (wait for it) Catholic hospitals and Kaiser, their company union SEIU Health Workers, Anthem Blue Cross and the California Endowment.

Did you get that?

The stakeholders in charge of creating a ten year strategic plan under which all of the Health and Human Services will be mandated are Catholic Hospital West, now referred to as Dignity Healthcare (although I refuse to call it that), Mercy Hospital, and Kaiser, their company union SEIU Health Workers, Anthem Blue Cross and the California Endowment.

The foxes will officially be in charge of the hen house. These self-interested corporations will be in charge of the implementation of goals and objectives to close the gaps in access to health care.

So after women and men of color were successful in altering the Office of Health Equity Trailer Bill that the Governor was trying to ram through the Legislature – the California Hospital Association and their unions and the Governor quickly acted to nullify that work.

When government does not believe that women’s equality and empowerment are core functions of government, a consistent pattern in the creation, implementation and maintenance of policies and programs emerges….women simply are not included.

We will not allow this governor to hand over our health care to Catholic Hospitals and those who collude with them to offer substandard care to women.

So my call to you today is this….Get off your chairs and vote. Get us the two-thirds majority in the Legislature. Come to Sacramento and put your body in the chair in the hearing rooms where they vote on these bills that affect the almost 19 million women in our state.  Force the legislators to see you and hear from you.

Together, we must also advocate for single payer health care. It is an individual’s right to be able to access health care and we must get corporations and employers out of the picture for everyone to be able to exercise that right.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, we need to let women know what’s at stake in this election and what the Governor is doing in Sacramento.  One of the ways we can do that is through electronic town halls which have been proven to be effective in reaching large audiences.  However, those obviously cost us money so we need help securing the funds necessary to reach the millions of women in California who are affected by what’s happening.

California NOW is determined to continue speaking out on this issue and educating voters throughout the state.  But we cannot do it alone.  If you are with us, I’m asking you to contact every woman – and man – you know and tell them what is going on and insist they tell everyone they know.  And insist that they vote!  And if you want to help us reach millions of women with the townhalls, please click here to make an online donation.

Monday's Action Checklist

This week we're all about legislation here in California.  We are spotlighting three bills authored by Holly Mitchell.

First up is AB 2348 which will allow registered nurses in community clinics to provide birth control under a standardized procedure. That makes perfect sense in today’s world, especially given the safety of birth control and its wide use. Access to birth control is a critical public health issue and an essential component of women's health care.  Millions of women have safely taken the pill since the FDA approved it back in 1960. By passing AB 2348, California will expand women’s access to reproductive services. While elected officials across the nation are passing laws to defund reproductive health services and restrict women’s access to reproductive care, California can continue to be a leader in expanding access to essential women’s health care services by passing this bill.

AB 2266 would create “health teams” – including social service and housing providers to offer coordinated care to frequent users.  This bill would transform our Medi-Cal system from a ‘treat the illness’ to a ‘treat the person’ approach.  Overwhelming data on supportive housing, which offers the type of services this bill would fund, show that AB 2266 could save Medi-Cal between $7,500-$29,000 per participant, per year.  Most importantly, it would save the lives of potentially thousands of Californians, getting people off the streets, out of hospitals and into decent, appropriate care.

AB 2015 (Calls for Kids) gives parents in California the ability to make arrangements for their child at the moment of an immigration raid or an arrest.  Imagine the parent who is arrested and wants to ensure their child is with a relative or friend, but is prevented from making a phone call.  Once separated, bringing families back together and avoiding legal separation becomes more difficult. It is more expensive for state and local governments when children are unnecessarily placed in the custody of child protective services or foster care. Let's take care of families at the point of arrest and save unnecessarily cost and heartache in the future.  Right now, Calls for Kids has been sent to the Suspense Fille.  Let's ask the bill's author, Holly Mitchell, what we can do to make sure children don't end up in child protective services if they have another option.

Take Action NOW:  Call Assemblymember Mitchell's office and ask how you can help: 916-319-2047

 

Unite Against the War on Women

On Saturday, April 28, women across the country will come together to Unite Against the War on Women.  California NOW will be participating in events in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento.

Since the 2010 election, the Republican Congress and legislators in state government have introduced and/or passed hundreds of bills restricting women's reproductive healthcare choices.  This year, the attacks have included trying to fire women for using birth control in Arizona, repealing equal pay laws in Wisconsin and state-sanctioned rape in Virginia.  And who could forget Darryl Issa's Congressional panel on birth control that did not include a single woman's testimony.

Here in California our own Democratic governor is throwing women's equality and empowerment out the window as he proposes eliminating gender equity in his plans to restructure our state's government.

To counter these attacks, a newly formed organization Unite Women says, “Enough is enough" and is mobilizing women and men on April 28th, 2012 to Unite Against the War on Women! With rallies and marches in every state capitol, California is proud to host three events: Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Diego.

Los Angeles: Meet at 10 am at Pershing Square, South Side 
Sacramento: Meet at 11 am, State Capitol Building, North Steps 
San Diego: Meet at 10 am, Balboa Park, Organ Pavillion 

Each location is rallying and marching for a day-long demonstration of equality.

For more information or to volunteer, please visit Unite Women California's fan page at  https://www.facebook.com/womenunitemarch or email UniteCalifornia@gmail.com.

Information on events nationwide can be found at www.UniteWomen.org

Monday's Action Checklist

The Supreme Court could very well repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act.  And unfortunately, too many women don't understand what's at stake.  There's so many benefits to women and the more people know about what's in the bill, the more likely they are to support it and use those great new benefits.  Right now - when healthcare is in the news - we need to share these facts with all the women we know.  Take Action NOW:  Click here to read the top 5 health care benefits for women and then share the list with everyone you know through social media.

What are all those chemicals in your lipstick and in your child's shampoo? Some of them are linked to cancer, birth defects, infertility and other health problems. We need your help to convince Congress that the beauty industry needs a safety makeover!  The Safe Cosmetics Act (H.R.2359) gives consumers, parents and environmental health advocates a real chance at national legislation that will eliminate harmful chemicals from the products women, men and children put on their bodies every day.  Take Action NOW:  Tell your Representative that safe cosmetics are important to you and ask them to support the Safe Cosmetics Act.

Farm workers are still dying from heat. In fact, since California issued its 2005 heat regulations to keep farm workers from dying of extreme heat, preventable farm worker deaths have continued at about the same pace as before. Since the state has failed to enforce its heat standards, we're joining the UFW in supporting AB 2346 (Butler) , the Farm Worker Safety Act. This allows farm workers themselves to be able to enforce mandatory shade and drinking water requirements by taking delinquent employers to court.  The measure would also make growers jointly liable along with farm labor contractors they hire if contractors fail to supply farm workers with shade and water when temperatures soar.  This bill does not impose any costs on taxpayers.  Take action NOW:  Click here to sign a letter to Labor and Employment Committee Chair Sandre Swanson asking him to support this bill.

"Pink slime" is a term used to describe a food additive made from spare beef trimmings that are treated with ammonium hydroxide to kill off E. Coli, salmonella, and other possible bacteria. Until women spoke out, it was in grocery stores, school cafeterias, and restaurants across the nation. In fact, an article published just a week or two ago noted, "ABC cited a former U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist in saying that 70% of supermarket ground beef contained the additive."  Although some stores like Kroger and Safeway have stopped selling pink slime and many schools have said they'll stop purchasing meat containing it, pink slime is still unlabeled and being sold in many grocery stores. Take Action NOW:  Tell the USDA and FDA to get pink slime out of ALL ground beef now, or at very least to require labels to list it as an ingredient so that we can decide whether or not to buy it for our families.

Cesar Chavez was instrumental here in California, leading the historic non-violent movement for farm worker rights with Dolores Huerta where they built a movement of poor working people that extended beyond the fields and into cities and towns across the nation.  Cesar inspired farm workers and millions of people who never worked on a farm to commit themselves to social, economic and civil rights activism.  His legacy, like the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., continues to educate, inspire and empower people from all walks of life.  Take Action NOW:  Support proposed legislation to make his birthday observed nationally on the fourth Friday of every March as "Cesar E. Chavez Day."

Donnesbury's Banned Comic

It sure doesn't feel like there's much to celebrate this Women's History Month, does it?  Instead of moving closer to gender equality, we've seen an all-out assault by GOP legislators against women's reproductive healthcare choices.

And even though 1 in 3 women in America will have had an abortion by the time she is 40, there were 92 laws enacted in 26 states last year alone that restricted women's reproductive healthcare.

If you click on the picture above, you'll see the complete banned Doonesbury comic on those restrictions.  But don't just chuckle when you read it - get angry!  Because right now in this country, one group of people are deciding when and if women will start or expand their families.

And let that anger spur you to action this election season.  Commit this year to helping vote out every single legislator who puts women's lives at risk for political gain!  The truth is, there are more registered female voters in this country than males - we have the power to take back our reproductive healthcare choices.  So what are we waiting for?