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THE EVOLUTION OF THE HEALTH CARE POLICY COUNCIL BILL Update for July 2008

The Health Care Policy Council bills encountered tough opposition in the
last weeks of the legislative session. At the end the bills had been
weakened significantly by opponents, and in House/Senate negotiations
the bill were allowed to die. The concept of the bill was rolled into
the NC Institute of Medicine Access to Health Care Study Group
http://ncleg.net/Sessions/2007/Bills/House/HTML/H2688v2.html with the
Institute of Medicine appointing the members of the Study Group. Thanks
to House Speaker Hackney, Representative Insko's hard work and the
intent of the original Health Care Policy Council were preserved. A
permanent study group has been created which is to make recommendations
to the General Assembly on moving us forward to a system where all North
Carolinians have health insurance.

OUR COMMUNITY, OUR HEALTH CARE, OUR VOTE
FALL 2008 COMMUNITY EDUCATION SERIES

A collaboration between League of Women Voters of Orange, Durham, and Chatham Counties & The Clinical Lecture Series at UNC-CH School of Social Work

When: Thursdays, 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Where: Extraordinary Ventures, 200 S. Elliott Rd, Chapel Hill <extraordinaryventures.org>
Pre-registration required by August, 14, 2008. (Space limited.) Please see attached form.
Free of charge. (1.5 contact hours available for each session.)
Questions: Contact Evelin Brinich at brinich@email.unc.edu

Session I. Insurance In North Carolina
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Mark Holmes, Ph.D., MPH, VP North Carolina Institute of Medicine will use the newest census data to inform us about the situation of insured/uninsured in our State. Participants will gain an understanding of the impact of these populations on health care costs in North Carolina.

Session II. Creative Health Care Solutions: The North Carolina Community Health Center
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Annette DuBard, MD, MPH and Barbara Rowland, MD will talk about creative solutions to working with Medicaid, Medicare, and uninsured patients. Participants will gain knowledge about how the award-winning NCCHC model works, its financial viability, and how to work with patients with limited financial means and other access barriers.

Session III. Are Drugs Making Your Wallet Sick?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
David Work, Executive Director, Emeritus, NC Board of Pharmacy and Mia Yang, UNC medical student and Pharm-Free Coordinator for UNC will inform us about drug pricing and how physicians who accept gifts from drug companies open the door to influence. Participants will gain an understanding about how pharmaceutical companies contribute to health care costs.

Session IV. How Do The Candidates Match Up?
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Thomas C. Ricketts, III, Ph.D., MPH, and a panel of student health policy experts will provide the results of their analysis of the health care reform positions of all the major candidates for Governor and for President. Participants will go to the polls a few days later with a greater understanding of all candidates’ health care platforms.

Registration: Must be received by 8/14/2008

Please note that sessions are free to the public and requests to attend the sessions will be filled on a first-come, first served basis. Parking is free and direct by the building of Extraordinary Ventures (address above).
Mail Registration to: Evelin Brinich, 320 Glendale Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 – or brinich@email.unc.edu

On September 29, 2007, the LWV of Orange, Durham, and Chatham Counties together with the Clinical Lecture Series of the UNC School of Social Work hosted a forum, Health Care for Everyone: How Do We get There? As a result, eight of the attendees interested in working on health care reform formed a committee. The Health Care Reform Advocacy Committee (HCRAC) has held several meetings and developed a mission statement based on the LWVUS position on health care reform, and each member of the committee has been assigned specific tasks. For additional information about HCRAC's work please go to http://lwvodc.org and choose Health Care Reform on the side panel. The LWVNC has given their full support to HCRAC's work. The committee's goal is to establish the best ways and means to advocate for affordable health care reform for everyone in North Carolina.

Our mission is to support a universal health care system for North Carolina, which is based on the LWVUS position:

The League of Women Voters of the United States believes that a basic level of quality health care at an affordable cost should be available to all U.S. residents. Every U.S. resident should have access to a basic level of care that includes the prevention of disease, health promotion and education, primary care (including prenatal and reproductive health), acute care, long-term care, mental health care, dental, vision and hearing care.  The League believes that under any system of health care reform, consumers/ patients should be permitted to purchase services or insurance coverage beyond the basic level.  The League favors a national health insurance plan financed through general taxes in place of individual insurance premiums.

We need everyone's help if we are going to make a change in correcting many of the injustices in our current health care system.  Contact Evelin Brinich at lwvnchealthcare@bellsouth.net to work on this issue.

League Partners

• North Carolina Health Access Coalition
• Health Care for All North Carolina