Laila and Betty have served the community for decades and every day deal with problems that go beyond financial services. A licensed clinical social worker and a registered nurse can not be replaced by financial counselors with one day of training. There have been too many cuts to HIV services in SF and it must stop. The Davies Campus is doing itself, and the city of SF a huge disservice while drastically reducing the breadth of services to thousands of HIV patients who desperately need the extra help Laila and Betty are uniquely qualified to provide.

1 in 100 children are affected by a Congenital Heart Disease in South Dakota, with 1 in 4 of those being critical. Only 1/3 are diagnosed before they are born. A simple and painless test using a pulse oximeter prior to discharge would save the lives of many children.

Pharmacists are being pushed beyond their limits. Medication errors are on the rise and the companies only care about the bottom line! It's time for Pharmacists to take the Profession back!!!!!

I was diagnosed with infertility and was denied my IVF health insurance benefit from the Hawaii Medical Services Association (HMSA) because I was not married. As a result, I was forced to pay out of pocket for my IVF procedure while married women using their spouse's sperm, civil union couples and same-sex married couples using donor's sperm were allowed the benefit. Infertility does not discriminate, and the right of a woman to access her health benefits to support her decision relating to procreation shall be free of unjustified government interference according to the Hawai`i Constitution. The right to health and family belongs to all women, equally. One woman, all women. One family, all families.

Over one million persons could die in TX from no insurance.

This is not an African issue, it is a GLOBAL issue. We need to prevent the further spread of the virus and help the people infected.

The way the current regulations are set up each dispensary has a different hardship program. This will cause good programs to be over run and will allow bad programs to avoid giving back to the community. It shouldn't matter where in the state you live to receive care, compassion, and quality of service from a state run program. The amendment would change the wording from allowing individual dispensaries to make whatever program they like and instead make a structured hardship program that will actually help needy patients.

Congress has ruined the Affordable Healthcare Act for the American Citizen. They have tagged it Obamacare. What it should be is healthcare for all American Citizens. Congress says they want to overhaul it. Now is the time. Now is the time to do it right.

The Affordable Care Act has given new hope to millions of people who previously had no hope of getting health insurance or the medical care they desperately needed. The Affordable Care Act has helped slow the rising cost of medical care. The Affordable Care Act is protecting millions of Americans from being bankrupted by sky high medical bills. The Affordable Care Act would be protecting millions more if some states weren't politically blockading the Medicaid Expansion while their citizens die for lack of care. The Affordable Care Act IS WORKING. As the new majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives lay their plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, we insist they call it by its true name, that the media call it by its true name, so that everyone knows repealing the Affordable Care Act will simply make medical care UNAFFORDABLE once again.

THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES SHOULD NOT BE THE ONLY INDUSTRIAL COUNTRY THAT DOES NOT TAKE CARE OF THEIR CITIZENS, AND MAKE IT NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO GET FAIR AND AFFORDABLE HEALTH INSURANCE!

Every day in this country an estimated 187 people die from drug overdose, and another 6,748 are treated in emergency rooms. That averages out to an overdose related hospitalization every 13 seconds and an overdose death every 7½ minutes. Drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, outstripping traffic fatalities and gun homicides. And every year it gets worse. In addition to the terrible human toll, substance abuse costs the U.S. economy between $500 billion and One Trillion Dollars annually, depending on what is counted as a cost. Effective treatment can dramatically reduce these staggering numbers. According to several conservative estimates, every dollar invested in addiction treatment programs yields a return of between $4 and $7 in reduced drug-related crime, criminal justice costs, and theft. When savings related to healthcare are included, total savings can exceed costs by a ratio of 12 to 1. My 24-year-old son, Anthony, died May 31, 2014, following a six-year battle with opioid and heroin addiction that included three unsuccessful short term treatment programs, each lasting less than 30 days, which was all that insurance would pay for. For most people, this is simply not enough time to recover from the assault addictive drugs make on the body and to restore the life skills that keep a person from relapsing. It wasn’t enough for Anthony. Research tells us that effective inpatient treatment leads to long term sobriety and fewer relapses. Ninety (90) day residential drug rehab is suggested by professionals as the minimum length of time for effective treatment. Anecdotal evidence gathered from post discharge patient interviews suggests that long-term treatment at a drug rehab facility can decrease the risk of relapse by up to 73%. That can mean the difference between addiction and recovery—or even life and death. Tell your U.S. Senators and representatives: Legislation must be enacted immediately to provide for a minimum of Ninety (90) days inpatient drug or alcohol treatment days per year at a facility certified to provide such care by the appropriate authority in the state in which it is located.

CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is on the front lines to prevent the spread of Ebola in the United States. They coordinate safety standards for medical facilities and medical workers in the U.S., and recently have updated those standards to deal with the Ebola threat. They also have sent public health experts to help control the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which experts see as vitally important to keeping Ebola out of the United States. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority was created by a bipartisan effort in Congress in 2005 to develop partnerships between the drug industry and government agencies to streamline the development of medical measures and stockpiling of vaccines and medications to fight public health crises, including emerging epidemics such as Ebola. National Institutes of Health, the largest biomedical research institution in the world, has been responsible for numerous advances in medical science. It coordinates and funds health-related research in hundreds of universities and laboratories in the U.S. Wikipedia says the scientific community considers the current low level of NIH funding to be a crisis in America, including the possibility that our research scientists will be lured away by China. If you want more information on this subject, here are facts and figures from members of Congress who are on committees which oversee federal health policy: Representative Anna Eshoo, D-California, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, reported on CNN online on October 30 that “Despite the tireless efforts of many health professionals, progress against Ebola and other diseases has been slowed by federal budget cuts. To boost our efforts to prevent epidemics, federal investment in biomedical research should be revived. ... “The trouble is that investment in key agencies like NIH and CDC -- the world's foremost biomedical research and public health institutions -- has fallen dramatically in recent years. “Between 2010 and 2013, the CDC saw over a billion dollars slashed from its budget. The purchasing power at the NIH, meanwhile, has been cut 10% over the last four years. And since 2010, the Hospital Preparedness Program, which provides resources to community hospitals for public health emergencies, has been cut by 44%, when adjusted for inflation. U.S. global health programs alone have lost over $400 million. ... “A look further back reveals even deeper cuts to biomedical research budgets. As a percentage of the total federal budget, we spend two-thirds less on research and development today than we did in 1965. At NIH, the number of research grants the agency is able to fund has declined every year since 2004. ...” You can add your direct message to the Republican leaders in Congress in Comments as you sign the petition.