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Timeline For Health Legislation Slips As HELP, Finance Committees Hit Snags

Senators delayed work Wednesday on one health care reform bill and hit partisan roadblocks on another as key lawmakers insisted they are still on track to have a bill on the floor by the middle of summer, The Washington Post reports.

Blogs Comment On World Population Day, Health Care Reform, Other Topics

The following summarizes selected women"s health-related blog entries. ~ "World Population Day 2009 -- Time To Finally Make Maternal Health a Priority," Sharon Camp, Huffington Post blogs: World Population Day on Saturday "serves as an urgent reminder that ... governments around the world must boost investments in global health," especially maternal health, despite the global economic recession, Camp, president and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, writes. Efforts "have fallen short" to date as the "financial res and political will needed to promote maternal health have been lagging," Camp writes. She notes that the nations are "hardly any closer" to achieving the United Nations" Millennium Development Goals of reducing maternal deaths by 75% and achieving universal access to reproductive health services by 2015. A "critical shortcoming" of recent efforts to achieve the MDGs has been the "reluctance of some governments and advocates to accept that better maternal health cannot be achieved without acknowledging, committing and fully funding sexual and reproductive health services," Camp writes. In particular, "this includes contraceptive services to help women time and space pregnancies as well as treatment of septic or incomplete abortions," and "providing safe abortion services consistent with individual country law," according to Camp. However, there is "some good news," she writes, noting that "[n]ew momentum behind worldwide advocacy efforts may yield the res and political commitment needed to make a difference." Camp concludes, "It is precisely because res are scarce that they must be used wisely and efficiently in a way that serves both humanitarian and economic development goals. Investing in saving women"s lives fits this bill" (Camp, Huffington Post blogs, 7/9).~ "Proposed Amendments Would Deny Health Care to Women," Lois Uttley, RH Reality Check: In a blog post addressed to "Gentlemen of the Congress," Uttley asks if they have "forgotten about the women" in their lives as they work on crafting health care reform legislation. Uttley writes,"[S]ome of you are wasting valuable time and taxpayer dollars proposing amendments that would deny health care" to several groups of people, including women. She writes that Republican Sens. Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Orrin Hatch (Utah) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) this week submitted amendments to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that would ban coverage for abortion services; protect health care providers and insurers from ""discrimination" for refusing to provide health care requested by their patients," including abortion and emergency contraception; allow federally qualified health centers to "not provide abortions and still get government grants"; and require that "[a]ny independent medical board appointed to determine the benefits that would be included in national health reform coverage would have to include "professional ethicists ... with specialty in rights of the life of the unborn."" Meanwhile, Democrats "are spending far too much time trying to win over colleagues who are never going to vote for health reform, no matter if you offer them abortion exclusions or new provider "conscience" laws or other provisions that would hobble health reform," Uttley writes. She continues, "Don"t forget that women are among the strongest supporters of moving quickly on health reform this year" because they are "grassroots experts on what is broken in the current health system," such as insurers" labeling of pregnancy as a "pre-existing condition," using "gender rating" in individual policies and excluding contraception coverage. She asks, "So what do women want?" Uttley provides a "list we"ve been compiling at Raising Women"s Voices for the Health Care We Need." Among the priorities, the list stresses that lawmakers should keep "moral values" out of the debate and that health insurance must be affordable, more simple to understand, fair, portable and universal (Uttley, RH Reality Check, 7/9).~ "Reports