In 2004, Texas passed a "Medical Tort Reform" law, promising that by limiting damages from medical malpractice judgements to just $250K, consumers would benefit from lower insurance costs. They didn't. Instead, the most complex cases went unprosecuted because they cost more to pursue than the victims could possibly win, ensuring ONLY the most frivolous cases ever went to trial. End result: dangerous doctors & hospitals go unpunished with no incentive to correct their mistakes, continuing to treat patients who unwittingly entrust their lives to them. Insurance companies saved billions not having to pay out malpractice judgements, ensuring ONLY the MOST frivolous cases ever see the light of day. Texas fell to 50th in the nation as insurance rates continued to soar, and victims of these dangerous doctors were victimized again, denied justice as State Law shielded the people who harmed them. In 2013, my health-conscious mother who walked two miles a day, went to the gym, watched her weight and went dancing on the weekends, decided to ask her doctor about a lump in her cheek. Her doctor told her she had "Stage iV Lymphoma" and needed chemo. I said "No" but her doctor talked her into it anyway. Her doctor failed to tell her to take any precautions and she landed in the hospital with Walking Pneumonia that nearly killed her. The hospital then prescribed medication to "cough up the phlegm." As a result, three days of non-stop coughing later, she suffered a collapsed lung. Nine days after that, after having to tell her nurse that she hadn't had a bowel movement in FIVE DAYS, they got her out of bed (with collapsed lung and tubes in her side) to use a portable commode, went into cardiac arrest and was left a vegetable. The doctors repeatedly lied to us about what happened. When we finally learned what DID happen, no lawyer would take our "excellent" case, citing the Texas Tort Reform "cap" making the case too costly to pursue. When my mother passed away nine miserable months later, I ordered a full autopsy. The result: MY MOTHER NEVER HAD CANCER. Still, we were told we could not sue, citing the "cap" as the reason. This is a dangerous... if not deadly... law that needs to be repealed. It does NOTHING to reduce insurance costs, serving only to make insurance companies rich by denying malpractice victims justice.

Affordable healthcare should be available to all United States citizens and the people of Florida should not be left out.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott just announced that he no longer supports using federal funds under Obamacare to provide health insurance to 800,000 uninsured Floridians. But in 2013, Scott said, "Expanding access to Medicaid services for three years is a compassionate, common sense step forward." There's still time for the Florida Legislature to pass Medicaid expansion this year, providing a lifeline to hundreds of thousands of Floridians. Will you help hold Gov. Scott accountable for his flip flop and demand that he get the job done NOW?

We need to legalize medicinal cannabis! Too many Hoosiers are suffering from cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and other illnesses. We need to stop spending $150 million in taxpayer money on sending innocent cannabis consumers to jail and make room for more serious offenses. Look at the facts, Indiana! Do research on the studies that come from outside the United States. Throw away all bias and look at the facts and statistics with a clean slate. 13,198 men and women, from our great Hoosier state, died from cancer in 2013. Cannabis can lower these numbers! (And we all know Indiana isn't a petition state but WE THE PEOPLE can change that too!) Also, we want the state to hear our voices and RECOGNIZE our petitions. We should have a say in our government, and voting for governor isn't what I'm talking about. We should be able to have a say when it comes to enacting a new law or changing a law. Our state wants to make laws solely based on what they (the people in office) believe is right, but what they believe isn't always right and people get hurt, lose families, and lose jobs. Currently they are trying to make possession of 1/4 of an ounce of dried cannabis flower a felony. This is outrageous and backward! Come on Indiana, sign your name, and if you want, call the governor's office or your representative and spread the enlightenment about cannabis!

Harmful Proposed Major Changes would: 1. prevent myself, and many other Aged & Disabled West Virginians, from being able to acquire (from our own budgets) necessary items (like wheelchair tires/parts, special mobility devices allowing safe winter travel, adaptive bathroom and emergency evacuation safety devices, etc) that are approved and needed but are NOT covered by traditional medicaid. 2. would force myself and many others to accept and pay for costly and intrusive 'Case Management' Services we neither want nor need. 3. would leave over 25% of participants with less mileage allotments then they require to meet their needs, taking away their 'life line' to the community, and disproportionately negatively affecting citizens in more rural areas. 4. Because the WV DHHR - Home Community Based Services Office misrepresented, under-reported, and then took no actions to resolve concerns reported to them during the official public comment period. Full Details are available here: http://tinyurl.com/StopHarmful2015WV-ADWchanges

Everyone in Florida deserves access to health care. Although this doesn't affect me it affects 800,000 people who need basic health care. We must end the blockade on funding and expand Medicaid now.

Please give serious consideration to the health and education of Missouri's children. Any financial cuts in Medicaid and/or education can only have an extremely negative effect on the quality of life (and, possibly death) of your constituents and have a profoundly negative future for children who might receive substandard educational and medical services.

Medical professionals including the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warn that antibiotics could stop working if they continue being overused. Oregon lawmakers have a proposal in their hands to stop one of the leading causes of antibiotic resistance: overuse on farm animals. Please join thousands of doctors, nurses and farmers and ask our lawmakers to act on this proposal.

The effectiveness of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy for the treatment of Autism and other Pervasive Developmental Disorders is supported by decades of clinical research (https://www.kennedykrieger.org/patient-care/patient-care-programs/inpatient-programs/neurobehavioral-unit-nbu/applied-behavioral-analysis). Yet insurance companies in Oklahoma continue to deny coverage for ABA therapy on the basis that it is "experimental" or "investigational"; that it is "habilitative" or "educational" in nature; or that the DSM-IV diagnostic codes for pervasive developmental disorders are simply not covered at all. Considering that the CDC estimates 1 in 68 children have been identified and that early intervention with ABA therapy is such a crucial element of a successful treatment plan, it is imperative that insurance companies be required to provide coverage. Furthermore, ABA has demonstrated effectiveness for persons with autism throughout the lifespan. Coverage for ABA should not be limited to children, but should be available to all.

We need more funding and acknowledgement of Pancreatic Cancer. My mother passed away after only 2 and a half months of diagnosis and was in misery from this illness. There is no early detection, so it is not found until too late. More and More people are being diagnosed, as young as their early 20s.

I am a physician and have seen the broken, corrupt system from both ends of the Stethoscope, written a book describing the physician's perspective, and been a patient who was uninsurable in the previous system. I believe that health care is a civil rights issue and that discrimination in health care based on social status should be stopped.

We need this law so ALS patients who on average have 2-3 years to live after diagnosis can use the Internet, which becomes their contact to the outside world. The machines with Eye Gaze technology will give patients access to the Internet, their family, and the world. http://www.indystar.com/longform/sports/2015/03/31/doyel-als-patients/25010527/