NHSA's mission is to be our nation's voice in providing leadership and advocacy for health equity services and interventions that improve birth outcomes and family wellbeing.

Healthcare reform continues to slowly move through Congress.  One of the main sticking points in both the House and Senate is over the issue of a national public health insurance option — or ‘public option.’  In the Senate, one possible solution to the controversy would be to provide a national public option with a state opt-out clause.  Today’s National Journal provided the following summary of the proposed solution:

Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad and Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Thomas Carper, D-Del., said leaders were interested in getting support for a national option with a state opt-out clause. The idea is a twist by Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer of New York on a Carper plan.

Schumer said reaction has been good. “Liberals live with it. Moderates live with it. It’s in the middle.”

Carper said he is working on further modifying it to include a trigger clause and a nonprofit, provisions aimed at Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Conrad.

Snowe said Thursday it would be difficult for her to imagine voting for a motion to proceed to the bill unless the public option includes a trigger that determines when it would kick in. Conrad, who authored the co-op system in the Finance Committee bill as an alternative to a public option, said Thursday states should have the choice to participate in a nonprofit.

In the House, Politico is reporting that Speaker Pelosi lacks the votes to pass a “robust public option”— the most aggressive of the three forms of a public option House Democrats have been considering as part of a national overhaul of health care.  The complete story can be found here.

The Washington Post has been closely tracking reform in their Healthcare Reform 2009 section of the website. On October 9, they published a simple flow-chart to help explain the complicated process for bills to move through Congress. It’s available online here.

–Jon Terry, President, Capitol Youth Strategies LLC

In honor of National Infant Mortality Awareness Month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution today supporting efforts to reduce infant mortality in the United States.  The resolution, H.Res. 260, was sponsored by Congressman Stephen Cohen, Democrat of Memphis, TN, and was cosponsored by 117 other Members of the House.

The resolution includes statistics related to the infant mortality rate in the United States, highlights the importance of prenatal care and concludes by stating that the “House of Representatives supports efforts to understand racial disparities and the rate of infant mortality in order to lower the rate of infant mortality in the United States.”

Speaking in support of the resolution on the House floor, Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, stated:

“I am reminded of the Healthy Start program that was reauthorized and signed into law by President George W. Bush on September 3, 2008. Healthy Start provides services tailored to the needs of high-risk pregnant women, infants, and mothers in geographically, racially, ethnically, linguistically diverse communities with exceptionally high rates of infant mortality. The goal of the program has been to reduce the factors that contribute to infant mortality, particularly among minority groups and remains a very important program to help reduce the deaths of children each year.”

A copy of the resolution can be found here.

–Jon Terry, President, Capitol Youth Strategies LLC

Before leaving town for the summer recess, the House and Senate were both successful at passing the funding bill for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  The House and the Senate provide nearly identical funding for Healthy Start — $105 million from the House and $105.372 from the Senate. This represents a slight increase over last year’s level of $102 million.   In addition to providing funding for Healthy Start, both the House and Senate included report language that highlights and calls attention to different aspects of the Healthy Start program.

The Senate report states:  The Committee provides $105,372,000 for the healthy start infant mortality initiative. The fiscal year 2009 comparable level was $102,372,000 and the same as the budget request.The healthy start initiative was developed to respond to persistently high rates of infant mortality in this Nation. The initiative was expanded in fiscal year 1994 by a special projects program, which supported an additional seven urban and rural communities to implement infant mortality reduction strategies and interventions. The Children’s Health Act of 2000 fully authorized this initiative as an independent program. The Committee urges HRSA to give preference to current and former grantees with expiring or recently expired project periods.

The House report states:  The Committee provides $105,000,000 for Healthy Start, which is $2,628,000 above the fiscal year 2009 funding level and the budget request. Healthy Start provides discretionary grants to communities with high rates of infant mortality to provide ongoing sources of primary and preventive health care to mothers and their infants. Currently, 102 communities have Healthy Start grants. The increase provided in the bill will support two to three new grants to communities.The National Fetal Infant Mortality Review (NFIMR) program, an important component of many Healthy Start programs, provides evidence-based interventions crucial to improving infant health in high risk communities. The Committee believes HRSA should continue to use Healthy Start funds to support the NFIMR program and that all Healthy Start Programs should be encouraged to implement NFIMR.

A complete copy of the Senate report can be found here.  The House report is found here.

–Jon Terry, President, Capitol Youth Strategies LLC