The Alabama Voter 
Fall 2009 Edition
Published December 19, 2009

Health Care Study

by Marilyn Garrett, LWVAL Health Care Study Chair

The health care debate is raging at the federal level and whatever is passed will affect all of the aspects- costs, access, quality and equity- which our study was to cover at the state level. It was decided that our efforts now should be to find out where the gaps are in our state health care programs and when (if) we do get a new national health care bill passed we will evaluate its affect on state programs.

Our committee is gathering information on All Kids (state program of SCHIP), Child Caring Foundation, Alabama Department of Public Health and Medicaid. We hope to have that info by the first of the year so that we can share it with local leagues.

Meanwhile, if members out there would be interested in getting some interesting information by state they may peruse the web site for the Kaiser Family Foundation- www.kff.org or the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation- www.rwjf.org. There are many other places to get information.

Thanks to committee members who are helping get information and contributing their knowledge. They are Jan Widell, Judy Jones, Lynn Richardson, Anna Blair, Libby Byars and Catherine Hunt.