Health Care Reform And Women: A Comparison Of The ACA And The AHCA

By Susan Blumenthal, M.D. and Alexandrea Adams

The contemporary commemoration of National Women’s Health Week supplied crucial time to mark the growth that has been made in advancing girls’s well being over the last 20 years and to spotlight what extra must be accomplished to succeed in girls’s well being fairness in America. Historically, girls have skilled discrimination in well being care regardless of making 80 p.c of well being care choices for his or her households, the use of extra clinical products and services than males, and struggling better incapacity from continual illness. Before the mid 1990’s, girls have been ceaselessly excluded as topics from clinical analysis research and underrepresented within the majority of scientific trials. Men have been thought to be to be the “generic” people in medical research, and the effects from all male research have been then generalized to lead the analysis, remedy, and prevention of illness in girls. Additionally, interventions to advertise more fit life and save you sicknesses like HIV/AIDS didn’t goal girls’s distinctive wishes. Inequalities in well being care restricted girls’s get right of entry to to lifesaving diagnostic, remedy, and prevention products and services. Furthermore, many ladies paid extra for his or her medical health insurance than males as a result of the potential for being pregnant and their longer existence expectancy (on reasonable). This omission of ladies as analysis topics and as the point of interest of prevention campaigns, in addition to barriers on get right of entry to to well being care products and services had put their well being in danger with emerging charges of middle illness, diabetes, lung most cancers, autoimmune diseases, psychological and substance use problems, and the epidemic of AIDS.

I’m proud to have performed a management function within the 1990s as the rustic’s first Deputy Assistant Secretary for Women’s Health within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to jot down a brand new nationwide prescription to give a boost to girls’s well being within the Federal executive, operating with a large vary of companions in the private and non-private sectors in America and globally. The tenet of this prescription was once that our nation’s analysis, prevention, and repair supply techniques should goal the entire country’s girls—throughout every age, socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds—addressing the well being wishes of the entire lady, in frame, thoughts and spirit. Some of the movements that have been taken all through my tenure within the place come with weaving a focal point on girls’s well being into the missions of all U.S. well being companies, organising National Centers of Excellence on Women’s Health at educational facilities around the nation to foster multidisciplinary analysis, expanding public schooling, improving well being care skilled coaching on intercourse variations in illness, and fostering the profession building of ladies in medication. I additionally established the National Women’s Health Information Center, which is a useful resource hub for complete fabrics on a large vary of ladies’s well being problems and the “Missiles to Mammograms” initiative that transferred imaging era from the CIA, NASA and DOD to give a boost to the early detection of breast most cancers and others.

In 1993, on account of tough advocacy efforts, the National Institute of Health Revitalization Act was once handed. This Act calls for girls and minorities to be incorporated in scientific trials supported on the NIH as a demand for acquiring investment. Just closing 12 months, a brand new NIH legislation was once enacted to be sure that each female and male animals and cells have been incorporated in elementary science research and that findings have been analyzed for intercourse variations. These transformational insurance policies information how analysis is to be carried out within the United States to lend a hand reach girls’s well being fairness.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) regulation has additionally had transformational results, including crucial component for advancing girls’s well being that have been lacking for all too lengthy—get right of entry to to reasonably priced, complete well being care. Prior to implementation of the ACA, there have been 50 million uninsured Americans of whom 19 million have been girls. Women ceaselessly paid extra for insurance coverage premiums than did males and have been much more likely to lose their insurance coverage if divorced or widowed. In 2007, the #1 explanation for bankruptcies within the U.S. was once loss of budget to pay clinical expenses. The American Journal of Public Health revealed a file in 2009 that estimated that 45,000 Americans died every year because of loss of medical health insurance. The United States was once spending greater than two times that of another country on well being care however ranked 42nd on existence expectancy and 37th out of 191 international locations at the well being standing of our electorate. We have been merely no longer getting what we paid for.

How the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) Improves Women’s Health

Signed into legislation on March 23, 2010, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act incorporated a couple of provisions to succeed in an effective, efficient, and equitable well being care device for each men and women. Since its implementation in 2012, the ACA has decreased the collection of uninsured girls via nine.Five million within the United States. Additionally, the regulation lets in formative years to stay on their father or mother’s insurance coverage plan till age 26 which ended in 7.7 million younger girls these days having medical health insurance. Another victory of the ACA is its inclusion of a “Patient’s Bill of Rights” which removes the gender ranking of premiums. Insurance firms are actually prohibited from charging girls upper charges than males for an identical protection. Insurance firms additionally can not deny protection to these individuals who have pre-existing stipulations which ceaselessly avoided girls who have been pregnant, had most cancers, a psychological sickness, or another situation from acquiring insurance coverage or paying a lot upper premiums. Furthermore, the ACA prevents insurance coverage firms from instituting lifetime receive advantages caps, losing sufferers who record repayment claims, and guarantees that no less than 80 p.c of top rate bills are spent on well being care as an alternative of administrative prices.

The ACA established Health Exchanges in states across the nation for individuals who wouldn’t have employer insurance coverage or qualify for Medicaid to buy person plans. Women whose earning are between 100 and 400 p.c of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) are actually eligible for tax-credits against the acquisition of insurance coverage throughout the Marketplaces established via the legislation.

Importantly, the ACA considerably expanded eligibility for the Medicaid program, which insures low-income people at or underneath 138 p.c of the FPL. 31 states and Washington, D.C. have permitted the Medicaid growth provision of the regulation. Medicaid supplies medical health insurance to greater than 74 million Americans, amongst them 60% of nursing house citizens and hundreds of thousands of disabled other folks. Currently, two-thirds of Medicaid beneficiaries are girls. In 2010 Medicaid paid for 48 p.c of all births, 3 quarters of all public circle of relatives making plans products and services, and supplied supplemental protection for almost 1 out of five senior girls on Medicare. The Medicaid growth additionally incorporated a provision for steady protection 60 days following the beginning of a girl’s child. Before the ACA’s Medicaid growth, new moms have been ineligible in maximum states. The regulation has additionally helped girls who wouldn’t have youngsters download protection.

The ACA mandates that every one non-grandfathered insurance coverage within the person marketplace and executive well being care plans should come with ten Essential Health Benefits together with ambulatory products and services, emergency products and services, hospitilization, maternity and new child care, psychological well being and substance abuse products and services, prescribed drugs, rehabilitive products and services, laboratory products and services, preventive and wellness products and services, and pediatric care. These complete advantages are crucial components for making improvements to girls’s well being.

The ACA emphasizes prevention in addition to the remedy of illness. The United States spends $Three.2 trillion on well being care—18 p.c of its gross home product (GDP)—however purposes extra as a “sick care” device reasonably than a “health care” device. In 2009, best Three-Five p.c of the U.S. well being finances was once spent on prevention whilst 75 p.c of clinical prices have been related to the remedy of preventable lifestyle-related sicknesses. The ACA features a provision that every one insurance coverage supply a variety of preventive well being products and services and not using a deductible or cost-sharing, together with well-woman visits, pap smears, mammography, HIV checking out, and cervical most cancers screenings. Additionally, the ACA covers screenings and counseling for ladies who’re sufferers of violence. The ACA additionally established the Prevention and Public Health Fund which allotted $18.75 billion for prevention products and services in communities and states together with immunizations, middle well being screenings, pandemic preparedness tasks and different interventions. Incentives are incorporated within the ACA for place of work wellness techniques as nicely.

The ACA improves well being deal with girls around the lifespan. It contains essential reproductive well being products and services for ladies. Contraceptives are lined as a part of the fundamental package deal of no charge preventive products and services that insurers are required to offer with some exceptions given for religiously-affiliated organizations. The ACA additionally contains investment for a brand new schooling program that goals to tell teenagers about secure sexual practices and guarantees that screenings for sexually-transmitted infections, together with HIV, are readily to be had, particularly for high-risk formative years. The regulation is helping pregnant girls obtain the care that they want. Although the United States is without doubt one of the maximum complicated international locations on the planet, it ranks 136th in maternal mortality fee, having the very best maternal mortality fee within the industrialized international. To give protection to the well being of moms and small children, the ACA covers screenings for pregnant girls for gestational diabetes, Hepatitis B, Rh incompatibility, HIV, and iron deficiency. Interventions to forestall beginning headaches because of alcohol intake and tobacco use all through being pregnant also are lined, as are folic acid dietary supplements to forestall toddler beginning defects. Moreover, the ACA contains provisions to give a boost to maternal and kid well being after beginning via requiring protection of breastfeeding strengthen products and services, and place of work protections for nursing girls. Postpartum despair (PPD) detection and remedy products and services in addition to PPD analysis are incorporated within the ACA. All of those interventions have essential protecting results for each the bodily and psychological well being of moms and their youngsters.

Furthermore, the ACA makes a speciality of the particular wishes of ladies as they age. Women represent 57 p.c of the U.S. inhabitants over the age of 65, and 65 p.c of the inhabitants over age 85. While girls have an extended existence expectancy than males (on reasonable) and are at better threat for continual sickness, girls are much less most probably than males to have the monetary assets to handle their just right well being later in existence. The ACA expands Medicare advantages—girls represent 59% of this system’s enrollees—masking preventive screenings for osteoporosis and different sicknesses, and offering a cut price on prescribed drugs for many who to find themselves within the “donut hole”.

The ACA has additionally been a process author in communities. With 20 million extra other folks insured as a result of the regulation, the invoice ended in an larger call for for well being care and the employees to offer it. The well being care trade now employs 15.Five million other folks—Five million new jobs because the ACA regulation handed.

The American Health Care Act Will Reverse Progress in Women’s Health

With best Republican strengthen, the U.S. House of Representatives handed the American Health Care Act (AHCA) on May 4th, 2017 to repeal and change the ACA. This regulation is now being debated within the U.S. Senate.

The AHCA removes many mandates, necessities, and budget supplied beneath the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), offering states with better autonomy about how they administer insurance plans. Key AHCA provisions come with getting rid of person and employer insurance coverage mandates, finishing Medicaid growth, slashing tax subsidies that lend a hand low revenue Americans acquire medical health insurance, banning federal investment of Planned Parenthood, getting rid of investment for the Public Health and Prevention Fund and permitting states to waive or regulate the Essential Health Benefits package deal in addition to do away with the prohibition on charging other folks extra for insurance coverage if they’ve a pre-existing situation.

The House well being reform regulation takes a machete to Medicaid, a program that gives medical health insurance for 74 million Americans—via slicing $834 billion of federal budget over ten years from this system. The President’s FY2018 finances proposes to chop an extra $610 billion from this system beneath the “pretext of reforming it”. When blended, consistent with a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities research, this represents an estimated 45% relief in Medicaid via 2026, the biggest restructuring of this system since its established order in 1965. For maximum individuals in this system, the government can pay 50-75% of prices, relying at the state. Commencing in 2020, the AHCA would convert federal Medicaid investment from an open-ended matching device to an annual fastened quantity of federal bucks supplied to the states. States may choose a “block grant” for cost of products and services for kids beneath the age of 18 and occasional revenue folks of “dependent children” or a “per capita cap” method for 5 inhabitants teams together with seniors, other folks with disabilities, youngsters of newly eligible adults, and all different adults. This capped method will lead to a discount of federal spending, moving the duty to states to pay extra of the well being care prices of its citizens from their very own budgets in the event that they need to maintain Medicaid advantages at present ranges. Women shall be negatively impacted as a result of they’re a majority of Medicaid beneficiaries. Furthermore, with much less cash to spend on well being care, state legislatures must make difficult budgeting choices that would take budget clear of different techniques that receive advantages girls to pay for well being products and services or scale back clinical advantages. The AHCA would additionally set the extent of tax credit score help to buy medical health insurance the use of essentially age and would repeal the ACA’s cost-sharing provisions for low revenue other folks. Women constitute 54 p.c of ACA market enrollees within the 36 states that use the federally facilitated market, healthcare.gov. An estimated 81 p.c of beneficiaries within the well being market obtain a top rate tax credit score, which offsets top rate prices and makes medical health insurance extra reasonably priced. In 2015, greater than 37 p.c of ladies who bought insurance coverage have been low revenue in comparison to 31 p.c of guys. Because girls have decrease earning than males throughout all age teams in America, this provision of the AHCA may put girls at an obstacle in comparison to males and adversely impact their well being.

The ACA has prohibited many discriminatory practices that have been happening within the person insurance coverage market. While the AHCA maintains the gender ranking ban and lets in youngsters to stick on their folks’ plan till age 26, it’s going to allow states to permit insurers to rate upper premiums to people with pre-existing stipulations. If the AHCA turns into legislation, states will have the ability to download a waiver from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) starting in 2020 enabling insurers to rate men and women with pre-existing stipulations upper charges. States can identify high-risk swimming pools for insuring those other folks. The HHS has 60 days to study state waiver requests prior to they mechanically cross into impact. The AHCA contains an modification that units apart $eight billion to lend a hand states subsidize insurance coverage premiums for other folks with pre-existing stipulations. However, professionals estimate that that is some distance too little to offer enough subsidies for all those that have pre-existing stipulations. Women who’re pregnant, have a historical past of psychological sickness, substance abuse, breast most cancers or another situation might be priced out of buying insurance plans. Of specific worry is that ladies who’re sufferers of any more or less violence will be unable to procure protection. Many attack survivors be afflicted by continual stipulations akin to ache, gastrointestinal problems, anxiousness, despair, and post-traumatic tension dysfunction. Women with those stipulations will have to pay extra for his or her medical health insurance or would possibly no longer have the ability to manage to pay for it altogether.

Furthermore, the AHCA makes insurance coverage a lot much less complete via permitting states to procure waivers to choose out of offering the Essential Health Benefits which are required beneath the ACA. All taking part insurance coverage, Medicaid and Medicare are required to hide ten classes of advantages. Those of specific significance to ladies were the inclusion of maternity care, preventive products and services, and psychological and substance abuse prevention and remedy. The removing of the Essential Health Benefits takes our country again to an technology when girls had a hard time acquiring insurance coverage with maternity protection and different well being products and services. Prior to implementation of the ACA, best 18 states had mandates for maternity protection within the person or small crew insurance coverage plan market and there was once no parity for protection of psychological and substance use problems. While the AHCA would handle preventive products and services necessities for personal insurance coverage, it’s going to repeal the necessities for the Medicaid growth. States may choose to roll again protection for this inhabitants.

The Congressional Budget Office file launched closing week confirms that the AHCA would opposite the growth made in advancing girls’s well being care in recent times. The file estimates that if the AHCA is handed, 23 million other folks will lose their insurance coverage via 2026, most commonly on account of the Medicaid cuts. Additionally, 1 out of 6 Americans will are living in a space with an risky non crew insurance coverage marketplace. The file predicts that insurance coverage premiums will upward push for low-income, older Americans via up to nine occasions the present charges. The CBO file additionally underscores that the majority Americans will download much less complete protection because of the removing of the Essential Health Benefits provisions contained within the AHCA. While the AHCA would decrease premiums for the younger and the wholesome, it’s going to remove many of us’s get right of entry to to complete clinical products and services.

Contraceptive protection is jeopardized for ladies within the AHCA. The invoice defunds Planned Parenthood (PP), a company that serves 2.Five million girls every year. 6 in 10 girls who use PP file it as their number one supply of well being care. 75 p.c of PP’s sufferers are 150 p.c underneath the FPL. PP has begun to near its doorways in some states because of regulation that removes investment for the group. Without federal bucks, PP will be unable to serve the 14,676 sufferers who’ve been suffering from the closure of 10 well being facilities within the Midwest and Southwest. As a consequence, girls can have much less get right of entry to to contraceptives, circle of relatives making plans and counseling, and most cancers and STI screenings.

What movements can also be taken to make stronger the Affordable Care Act?

Many well being professionals imagine that the ACA will have to be repaired as an alternative of repealed and changed. What are one of the methods to perform this objective? First, Medicaid will have to be expanded in states that experience no longer but accomplished so and lift the revenue degree for qualifying in order that extra individuals are eligible to sign up. The Federal executive may additionally supply extra budget to decrease the price of medical health insurance that people and households face. This might be achieved partly via expanding the extent of subsidies to be had for insurance coverage bought at the exchanges, or elevating the revenue thresholds at which the subsidies segment out—or each. Strategies are had to get fitter other folks to buy insurance coverage together with taking into account an automated insurance coverage enrollment process. With fitter other folks within the threat pool, insurance coverage premiums can be decreased. Private insurance coverage markets best paintings nicely when there’s a massive and diverse threat pool. If they will supply common or near-universal protection, the person mandate must be enforced which might imply elevating the consequences for non-compliance and implementing them extra successfully. A public choice, “A Healthy USA Plan” and/or reducing the age for enrollment into Medicare may additionally be thought to be as tactics to get extra other folks insured. Additionally, there’s $eight billion in reinsurance bills which have been promised to insurance coverage firms beneath provisions of the ACA that would lend a hand carry premiums down however were blocked via Republicans. Drug costs will have to even be higher negotiated. America is the one nation within the industrialized international that doesn’t include emerging pharmaceutical prices on this manner.

Sadly, the Administration’s proposed FY2018 finances (A New Foundation for American Greatness) does the other of strengthening the ACA. While it proposes to do away with the rustic’s finances deficit, as an alternative the finances supplies primary tax cuts to the rich on the expense of the in poor health and the deficient. The Tax Policy Center estimates that the highest 1% of salary earners would obtain a $37, 500 tax minimize every year whilst the center elegance would get a couple of $300 tax minimize. The Administration’s finances proposes important cuts to Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) over the following ten years and prohibits any federal investment for Planned Parenthood. The FY2018 finances additionally features a $192 billion minimize from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) which is able to negatively impact 40 million low revenue Americans, 50% of whom are youngsters. It additionally reduces the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) finances via 17 p.c, considerably impeding efforts to construct a tradition of well being in America and jeopardizing public well being preparedness tasks to lend a hand save you and reply to infectious illness outbreaks within the United States. Additionally, the finances features a $6 billion minimize for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) which might severely thwart efforts to find treatments and prevention methods for the sicknesses that impact men and women in our nation nowadays.

The base line: the ACA of 2010 considerably decreased the collection of uninsured girls in America, offering tens of hundreds of thousands of other folks with complete well being products and services, a affected person’s “Bill of Rights” that prohibits discriminatory insurance coverage practices, and has begun a prevention revolution on account of many provisions contained within the legislation. Under the AHCA, an estimated 23 million other folks will lose their medical health insurance via 2026. American girls gets sicker once more. The ACHA will minimize taxes for the rich however have devastating results for the well being of Americans in addition to for the budgets of state governments, hospitals and public well being techniques. We can and should do higher as a country.

Over the previous 25 years, a lot growth has been made to advance girls’s well being. As a results of the passage of the ACA, a essential element was once added to the nationwide prescription to give a boost to girls’s well being that have been lacking till lately—get right of entry to to complete, high quality well being care. The ACA incorporates provisions to deal with the original wishes of ladies throughout their lifespan.

Recent debate has occupied with repealing and changing the ACA as an alternative of strengthening the legislation. The passage of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) previous this month within the U.S. House of Representatives removes the growth of Medicaid via slicing virtually $1 trillion from this system over the following ten years, gets rid of subsidies to buy insurance coverage for low revenue Americans, blocks Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements, lets in states to do away with Essential Health Benefits and rate upper insurance coverage premiums for other folks with pre-existing stipulations, and cuts essential prevention and preparedness budget. Since get right of entry to to complete well being care is a key component within the prescription for ladies’s well being fairness, all of us have a lot at stake within the present debate over the way forward for America’s personal and public insurance coverage techniques.

Nobel Prize winner, Madame Marie Curie, as soon as mentioned, “I never see what has been done. I only see what remains to be done.” Let us unravel to do what is still accomplished to make stronger the Affordable Care Act, building up investments in clinical analysis, and emphasis the facility of prevention to verify a more healthy long term for all girls—and males—within the United States.

Rear Admiral Susan J. Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.A. (ret.) is the Public Health Editor of the Huffington Post. She is a Senior Fellow in Health Policy at New America, a Clinical Professor at Tufts and Georgetown University Schools of Medicine, and Senior Policy and Senior Policy and Medical Advisor at amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. Dr. Blumenthal served for greater than 20 years in senior well being management positions within the Federal executive within the Administrations of 4 U.S. Presidents together with as the primary Deputy Assistant Secretary of Women’s Health, Assistant Surgeon General of the United States, and as Senior Global Health Advisor within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She additionally was once a White House Advisor on well being. Prior to those positions, Dr. Blumenthal served as Chief of the Behavioral Medicine and Basic Prevention Research Branch and Chair of the Health and Behavior Coordinating Committee on the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She has chaired a large number of nationwide and world commissions and meetings and is the creator of many medical publications. Admiral Blumenthal has gained many awards together with honorary doctorates and has been embellished with the very best medals of the U.S. Public Health Service for her pioneering management and landmark contributions to advancing well being within the United States and international. Named via the New York Times, the National Library of Medicine and the Medical Herald as one of the vital influential girls in medication, Dr. Blumenthal was once named the 2009 Health Leader of the Year via the Commissioned Officers Association and as a Rock Star of Science via the Geoffrey Beene Foundation. She is the recipient of the Rosalind Franklin Centennial Life in Discovery Award.

Alexandrea Adams is a junior at Dartmouth College learning Biology and Public Policy. She is these days a Health Policy Intern at New America in Washington D.C.

[1] U.S. Department of Labor. “Fact Sheet – General Facts on Women and Job Based Health.” 10 Oct. 2012.

[2] Cecere, D. “New Study Finds 45,000 Deaths Annually Linked to Lack of Health Coverage.” Harvard Gazette. 06 May 2017.

[3] “World Health Organization Assesses the World’s Health Systems.” WHO. World Health Organization, 2017.

[4] “Country Comparison: Life Expectancy at Birth,” Central Intelligence Agency, 2016

[5] H.R. 3590, 111th Cong., U.S. Government Printing Office (2010) (enacted).

[6] “Health Reform: Implications for Women’s Access to Coverage and Care.” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 29 August 2013.

[7] “Health Insurance Coverage and the Affordable Care Act.” ASPE. 05 May 2015

[8] Centers for Medicare/Medicaid. Reducing Costs, Protecting Consumers: The Affordable Care Act at the One Year Anniversary of the Patient’s Bill of Rights, 2011.

[9] Centers for Medicare/Medicaid. National Health Expenditures 2015 Highlights. 2015

[10] Blacksher, E, “Health Reform: What’s Prevention Got to Do with It?” Hastings Center Report, vol. 39 no. 6, 2009

[11] Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease and Partnership for Prevention. The Value of Prevention.

[12] “Prevention and Public Health Fund.” HHS.gov. US Department of Health and Human Services, 16 Dec. 2016.

[13] Norris, L. “How Obamacare Changed Maternity Coverage.” Health Insurance Resource Center. 16 Aug. 2016.

[14] “Country Comparison: Maternal Mortality Rate,” Central Intelligence Agency, 2010

[15] Wong, R. and Palloni, A. “Aging in Mexico and Latin America.” International Handbook of Population Aging (2009): 231-52.

[16] “Our Time is Now” The GOP’s New Health Care Plan. 04 May 2017

[17] The Editorial Board, “Trumpcare’s Cruelty, Reaffirmed.” The New York Times, 27 May 2017.

[18] Mangan, D. “24 Million Would Lose Health Insurance Coverage under GOP’s Obamacare Replacement by 2026.” CNBC. 14 Mar. 2017.

[19] Ranji, U., Salganicoff, A., Sobel, L., and Rosenzweig, C. “Ten Ways That the House American Health Care Act Could Affect Women,” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 08 May 2017.

[20] “Marketplace Plan Selections by Gender,” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 09 Dec. 2016.

[21] Levitt, L., Damico, A., Claxton, G., Cox, C., and Pollitz. Okay, “Gaps in Coverage Among People With Pre-Existing Conditions.” The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. 17 May 2017.

[22] Somashekhar, S. “Planned Parenthood to Close 10 Health Centers across Midwest, Southwest.” The Washington Post, 19 May 2017.

[23] “National Women’s Health Week.” Womenshealth.gov. 10 May 2017.

[24] Office of Management and Budget. “Budget of the U.S. Government: A New Foundation For Greatness.” 23 May 2017

[25] Achenbach, J., and Sun, L. H. “Trump Budget Seeks Huge Cuts to Science and Medical Research, Disease Prevention.” The Washington Post. 23 May 2017.

[26] Davis, J. H. “Trump’s Budget Cuts Deeply Into Medicaid and Anti-Poverty Efforts.” The New York Times, 22 May 2017.

[27] Blumenthal, M.D., S. “Healing America’s Health Care System.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 03 Aug. 2012.

[28] Blumenthal, M.D., S. “Women’s Health: Decades Later, What’s Still Neglected.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 08 Mar. 2011.