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• 9 -- that's  number of states and the District of Columbia where there is still no specific law that makes it illegal for insurers to reject applicants who are survivors of domestic violence by citing the history of domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. [Source]

In many ways, America's women are those struggling most under the health care status quo.  We're uniquely impacted by gender inequalities ranging from being charged higher premiums just because we're women to insurance companies being allowed in some states to deny coverage because of so-called “pre-existing conditions” like being pregnant.  In addition, we're often the ones looked to for handling the health care of others.  Most mothers say they're the ones responsible for managing their families' care -- from choosing doctors to taking their kids to appointments to fulfilling family prescriptions.  And many women also find themselves caring for a sick or elderly relative. 

While women may be dealing with many of the hardships of our broken health care system firsthand --  women also have the most to gain from health insurance reform.

Take a look at the video First Lady Michelle Obama previously recorded to highlight health insurance reform from the unique perspective of women:

Today’s number -- 9 -- is the latest in our ‘Health Reform by the Numbers’ series, an online campaign to raise awareness about how we just can’t wait any longer for health insurance reform. You can follow the campaign on Whitehouse.gov and social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn.

To help spread the word, share this blog post with your family, friends and online networks using the ‘Share/Bookmark’ feature below.

If you still have questions about what reform means for you and your family, tune in tonight at 5:15pm ET to get answers from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Previous Numbers:

• 50/50
• 1
• 41
• 625
• 8
• 1115

It seems at first a simple graph; a few skinny bars reaching various heights along a non-descript x-axis.  By most accounts it is a simple depiction I suppose—a graph in this instance showing the number of pallets of relief aid that flowed across beaches the Navy created in response to the earthquake in Haiti.

I, however, see something completely different when I look at that sparse graphic in the corner of the powerpoint slide I have my staff produce everyday.  I look at the tiny measure of “three” on 18 January, and remember Captain Fred Wilhelm’s even and intent voice on the phone as he told me of the horror he and his GUNSTON HALL crew had encountered when they first went ashore in Killick, Haiti.  The vastness of the medical emergencies and the devastation at what used to be a functioning Haitian Coast Guard base—turned into what he described as the “site of a plane crash”.  I remember the urgency with which he dispatched his boat back to his ship to bring medical personnel and supplies—three pallets worth—including, though not specifically authorized, lots and lots of painkilling medicine to help the horribly injured.  In that tiny measure of “three” I see a Commanding Officer making tough gut calls balancing policy and regulation against the immediate and dire compulsion of people in need; I see hurried but professional Navy medical personnel attending to people strewn about, too weak and injured to move, some already gone and sadly but necessarily passed by.  I see young Sailors intently hand-over-handing boxes of medical supplies getting relief to those laying on the ground, too focused then to realize the images they were seeing that day would likely be with them the rest of their lives.  I see other Sailors resolutely carrying other injured Haitians to that section of spare grass reserved for those who would not be in need of the helicopters hovering overhead, those who were to be compassionately administered a final dose of morphine to relieve their suffering during their last moments on earth.  All this I see in that sad measure of “three”—the first pallets of relief delivered ashore into the vastness of devastation by the BATAAN Amphibious Relief Mission encountered in Haiti.

Moments ago the President issued a statement on the National Broadband Plan just released by the Federal Communications Commission:

America today is on the verge of a broadband-driven Internet era that will unleash innovation, create new jobs and industries, provide consumers with new powerful sources of information, enhance American safety and security, and connect communities in ways that strengthen our democracy.  Just as past generations of Americans met the great infrastructure challenges of the day, such as building the Transcontinental railroad and the Interstate highways, so too must we harness the potential of the Internet.  Expanding broadband across the nation will build a foundation of sustained economic growth and the widely shared prosperity we all seek.

I commend Chairman Julius Genachowski, the Commissioners, and the FCC staff for their hard work in developing the National Broadband Plan. 

My Administration will build upon our efforts over the past year to make America's nationwide broadband infrastructure the world’s most powerful platform for economic growth and prosperity, including improving access to mobile broadband, maximizing technology innovation, and supporting a nationwide, interoperable public safety wireless broadband network. 

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has a post up on the broadband blog laying out the basics -- or if you prefer, here he is in video form:

In his proclamation for Women’s History Month on March 2, President Obama said, "Our nation's commitment to women's rights must not end at our own borders, and my Administration is making global women's empowerment a core pillar of our foreign policy." 

At this year’s session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the United States demonstrated that commitment, with a high-level and engaged delegation and with bold leadership across a range of issues.  We focused on the most glaring challenges women still face:  the lack of economic empowerment, equal rights, violence against women and maternal mortality.
  
As Ambassador Susan Rice noted, every year, an estimated 530,000 women die from largely preventable complications during pregnancy or childbirth. This means that somewhere in the world, a woman dies from pregnancy-related conditions once every minute. The U.S.-led resolution, the cornerstone of our work at the 54th session, calls for the elimination of maternal mortality and morbidity through the empowerment of women.  It urges leaders to tackle this problem through renewed political will, increased resources and access to women’s sexual and reproductive health services, and a shared determination to confront the underlying causes of gender inequality, including sexual violence against women.

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of top diplomats and delegates detailing the global progress that has been made since the 1995 Beijing World Conference on Women.   Secretary Clinton highlighted ways in which women and girls around the world have heeded the call to action issued in Beijing – from bringing peace to Liberia, to taking a stand against child marriage in Yemen, to founding microcredit cooperatives throughout the developing world.  But, she noted that inequalities, discrimination, and oppression still exist.  Secretary Clinton spoke about the way in which we are integrating women throughout our foreign policy – in our strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, in our work to prevent violence against women and girls in conflict, and in our Global Health Initiative, food security program, and response to the crisis of climate change.  And she urged that we must say with one voice that "women’s progress is human progress and human progress is women’s progress, once and for all."

Also at this year’s Session, the United States was steadfast in pushing for the creation of a more robust, efficient and effective agency at the UN to advance women’s equality and opportunities.  Ambassador Rice  said the new agency must be "swiftly established, well staffed, and sufficiently resourced.   A key component will be the prompt appointment of a dynamic, high-level person as Under-Secretary-General to head it…we are working diligently to make it happen."

We were fortunate to have a high-level and top notch team to advance our efforts during CSW, led by Secretary Clinton and Ambassador Rice. The team included Melanne Verveer, Ambassador at Large for Global Women’s Issues, and Deputy Heads of Delegation Ambassador Rick Barton and Ambassador Meryl Frank. The U.S. delegation also included five experienced public delegates: Beth Brooke, Global Vice Chair of Public Policy at Ernst & Young; Ellen Chesler, distinguished lecturer at Hunter College; Connie Evans, President and CEO of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity; Geeta Rao Gupta, President of the International Center for Research on Women; and Asifa Quraishi, founding member of the National Association of Muslim Lawyers.  We were also joined by key advisors: Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President; Lynn Rosenthal, White House Advisor on Violence Against Women; and Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls.

As Ambassador Rice summarized, our work at CSW was driven by the goal of realizing "a world where women and girls everywhere can fulfill their potential, free of fear, free of want, and with the opportunity to live their own dreams.  Many in this country may take those opportunities for granted. But when women are held back anywhere, the world is held back."

Jennifer Simon is a Senior Advisor to Ambassador Susan Rice, and serves as the Ambassador’s representative on the White House Council on Women and Girls

Last summer, I had the honor of travelling with the President his family to Yellowstone National Park.  The Obama family followed a long tradition of American Presidents visiting our nation National Parks including President’s Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton.

The National Park system is a fundamentally American and democratic idea: protecting our nation’s finest landscapes, preserving our history and culture, and providing places of recreation and respite for all Americans to enjoy.  As Secretary of the Interior, I’m proud to continue this tradition of investing in and protecting these places that define us as a nation.

I hope you’ll enjoy this never before seen footage of the first family’s trip to Yellowstone last summer -- or an extended version here -- and we look forward to seeing you at one of our National Parks this summer!

Ken Salazar in Secretary of the Interior

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• If you’re an American under the age of 65, there’s roughly a 50/50 chance that you will find yourself without coverage at some point in the next decade.[Source]

President Obama first highlighted this staggering figure in a weekly address from this past September and detailed how, in our broken health care system, losing insurance can happen to anyone.  At yesterday’s rally, the President reminded us of just how fragile the status quo really is:

Part of what makes this issue difficult is most of us do have health insurance, we still do.  And so -- and so we kind of feel like, well, I don’t know, it’s kind of working for me; I’m not worrying too much.  But what we have to understand is that what’s happened to Natoma, there but for the grace of God go any one of us.  Anybody here, if you lost your job right now and after the COBRA ran out …

So let’s just think about -- think about if you lost your job right now.  How many people here might have had a preexisting condition that would mean it’d be very hard to get health insurance on the individual market?  Think about if you wanted to change jobs.  Think about if you wanted to start your own business but you suddenly had to give up your health insurance on your job.  Think about what happens if a child of yours, heaven forbid, got diagnosed with something that made it hard for them to insure.

For so many people, it may not be a problem right now but it’s going to be a problem later, at any point.  And even if you’ve got good health insurance, what’s happening to your premiums?  What’s happening to your co-payments?  What’s happening to your deductible?  They’re all going up.  That’s money straight out of your pocket.

So the bottom line is this:  The status quo on health care is simply unsustainable. We can’t have -- we can’t have a system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people.

Today’s number – 50/50 – is the latest in our ‘Health Reform by the Numbers’ series, an online campaign to raise awareness about how we just can’t wait any longer for health insurance reform. You can follow the campaign on Whitehouse.gov and social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn.

To help spread the word, share this blog post with your family, friends and online networks using the ‘Share/Bookmark’ feature below.

Previous Numbers:

• 1
• 41
• 625
• 8
• 1115

Today, comprehensive health reform came one step closer to becoming a reality. This afternoon, the House Budget Committee voted to advance the legislation to the next phase in the process. After over a year of debate, the final package is only days away from getting the up-or-down vote Americans deserve.

This is good news for all the Americans suffering in the current system. Across the country, millions of Americans have seen their health insurance premiums skyrocket or have been denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions. Health care costs are crushing business, family, and government budgets. And without action, we know these problems will only get worse.

Today, the Budget Committee took an important step forward toward giving these families and small business owners some relief. It’s time for Congress to finish the job and pass reform that will give Americans control over their health care choices.

Kathleen Sebelius is Secretary of Health and Human Services

This afternoon the President was in Ohio as the year-long battle to finally reform America's health insurance system draws towards a close – and he took the opportunity to remind everybody why he has fought so hard for so long against such powerful interests.  He was introduced by Connie Anderson, the sister of Natoma Canfield – a woman whose awful but all-too-common struggles have served as a brutal symbol of what is wrong with our system for millions of others. 

It began with a letter – the type of letter millions of Americans have written to their presidents since the founding of this country.  But this letter, which she likely never expected anybody even close to the President to see, ended up in his hands.  It told of her story having battled off cancer sixteen years ago, and having battled with her insurance company ever since -- see the scanned images below or read the text of the letters here.

The President replied to her letter, but that was only the beginning:

When the President and HHS Secretary Sebelius met with insurance company executives recently asking them to justify their alarming rate increases across the country in recent months, he read her letter to them to make clear that this was not about politics, or lobbying, or grandstanding – this was about countless stories of working Americans being crushed under their health care costs, even when they play by the rules and pay their dues to insurance companies for what is supposed to be peace of mind.

Last week, though, Natoma collapsed.  She was taken to an emergency room, and has since been diagnosed with Leukemia.  Natoma and her family are struggling to determine how they will afford Natoma’s medical treatment now that she no longer has insurance, which she dropped in January 2010 because of rate hikes that simply made insurance unaffordable.

After being introduced by Natoma’s sister, the President recounted her story – and leaned into the microphone as he told the crowd what he has been trying to do for the past year:

THE PRESIDENT: So you want to know why I’m here, Ohio?  I’m here because of Natoma.  (Applause.)   I’m here because of the countless others who have been forced to face the most terrifying challenges in their lives with the added burden of medical bills they can’t pay.  I don't think that’s right.  (Applause.)   Neither do you.  That’s why we need health insurance right now.  Health insurance reform right now.  (Applause.)

AUDIENCE:  Obama!  Obama!  Obama!  Obama!

THE PRESIDENT:  I’m here because of my own mother’s story.  She died of cancer, and in the last six months of her life, she was on the phone in her hospital room arguing with insurance companies instead of focusing on getting well and spending time with her family.

I’m here because of the millions who are denied coverage because of preexisting conditions or dropped from coverage when they get sick.  (Applause.)

I’m here because of the small businesses who are forced to choose between health care and hiring.  (Applause.)

I’m here because of the seniors unable to afford the prescriptions that they need.  (Applause.)

I’m here because of the folks seeing their premiums go up 20 and 30 and 40 and 50 and 60 percent in a year.  (Applause.)
 
Ohio, I am here because that is not the America I believe in and that’s not the America that you believe in.

     AUDIENCE MEMBER:  What’s your plan?

     THE PRESIDENT:  So when you hear people say “start over” --

     AUDIENCE:  No!!

THE PRESIDENT:  -- I want you to think about Natoma.  When you hear people saying that this isn’t the “right time,” you think about what she’s going through.  When you hear people talk about, well, what does this mean for the Democrats?  What does this mean for the Republicans?  I don’t know how the polls are doing.  When you hear people more worried about the politics of it than what’s right and what’s wrong, I want you to think about Natoma and the millions of people all across this country who are looking for some help, and looking for some relief.  That’s why we need health insurance reform right now.  (Applause.) 

President Barack Obama is introduced by Connie Anderson, at the Walter F. Ehrnfelt Recreation and Senior Center in Strongsville, Ohio. Anderson is the sister of cancer patient Natoma Canfield, who wrote the President saying she gave up her health insurance after the premium rose to where she could no longer afford it March 15, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

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• 1 -- in every six dollars in the U.S. economy is spent on health care today. [Source]
• If we do nothing, in 30 years, 1 out of every three dollars in our economy will be tied up in the health care system. [Source]

Yesterday, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute, non-partisan research organizations, released a report analyzing the cost of maintaining the status quo on health care. Here’s just a sample of what they believe we could be facing in the years ahead:

• Families will face dramatically higher health care costs. Individual and family spending on premiums and out-of-pocket health care costs will increase significantly. Spending would jump 34 percent by 2015 and 79 percent by 2020.
• Premiums will become increasingly expensive for employers and their workers. Premiums for both single and family policies would more than double by 2020, increasing from $4,800 to $10,300 for single policies, and from $12,100 to $25,600 for family policies.
• Employers will see large increases in premium costs. Employer spending on premiums would increase from $430 billion in 2010 to $851 billion in 2020 -- a 98 percent increase.
• Many small and medium sized firms would quit offering health care coverage to workers. As premiums nearly double, employees in small firms would see offers of health insurance almost cut in half, dropping from 41 percent of firms offering insurance in 2010 to 23 percent in 2020. Medium-sized firms would also cut offers of health insurance, dropping from 90 percent in 2010 to 75 percent in 2020.

It’s clear: the cost of doing nothing is too high. The time is now to reform our broken health care system.

Today’s number, 1, is the latest in ‘Health Reform by the Numbers,’ our online campaign to raise awareness about why the time is now for health insurance reform. You can follow the campaign on Whitehouse.gov and social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn.

To help spread the word, share this blog post with your family, friends and online networks using the ‘Share/Bookmark’ feature below.

Previous Numbers:

• 41
• 625
• 8
• 1115