Dr. Val Goes To BlogHer Conference
From July 26-29 I’ll be in Chicago at the annual BlogHer conference. BlogHer is a community of women bloggers determined to make the world a better place. Revolution Health is proud to be a sponsor of BlogHer this year, and I’ve been asked to moderate a break out session contained within the “Earn Our Votes: What Questions Do Women Bloggers Want Candidates to Answer in Election 2008?” session. Revolution Health is non-partisan, and my role as moderator is to facilitate sincere discussion.
The break out session is 25 minutes long, and the goal is to distill all the important healthcare questions into only 3 key questions that women would like to ask presidential hopefuls about healthcare. In order to get the discussion going, I’ll present a list of questions featured recently on YouTube and in the BlogHer blogs. Please feel free to add questions in the comments section of this blog, and we’ll discuss them in Chicago on Saturday. Hope to see you there!
References
The recent CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate featured the following healthcare questions:
- How will your healthcare plan address the needs of the aging population, specifically those with Alzheimer’s, heart disease and diabetes?
- What will your healthcare plan do to address the need for affordable preventive medicine services?
- Does your healthcare plan cover undocumented workers?
- How do you intend to make sure that all Americans have some form of health insurance?
Various posts from the BlogHer conference blog:
Affordability / Universality
- How can we pay for healthcare in US sustainably?
- How can we make sure that anyone in the US not only has access to healthcare, but can afford it?
- How do we weed out those who choose not to have healthcare from those who desperately need it?
- How can we make healthcare a right, not a privilege, for every citizen?
- How can we mandate that all children in the US are insured?
- How do we protect families from insurance companies who deny claims in the face of a health crisis?
Women’s Issues
- How can we ensure increased access to family planning?
- How do we get birth control to be covered universally under health insurance policies?
- How do we achieve “scientific fairness” to women?
- How can we make women’s and children’s health issues a priority?
- How do we improve health education for women and children?
- How can we make childbirth and maternity leave less of a burden for working mothers? Especially as disability insurance is not offered to all nor is it usually enough. Women can afford to take time off after having a child.
- Can a woman’s reproductive rights be protected in US healthcare?
Ethics / Technology
- How can we ensure everyone has the same access to the same tests and treatments?
- How can we protect research, such as stem cell research, that has the possiblity to wipe out diseases?
This post originally appeared on Dr. Val’s blog at RevolutionHealth.com.