Every month, IWF releases a policy focus on issues affecting women and their families across the country. As valued members of IWN, we want to give yo...
Author: McKenzie Holmes
I'm dancer and creative writer from the Dallas, Texas, area, and I would be remiss without saying I work for IW! In my spare time, I like reading and trying new recipes (I have a love for my baking, not a love of baking). Lately, I have taken up vermiculture (worm farm!), knitting, country western dance, and can play four instruments.
Share Your Story About Being Hit With a Shocking Medical Bill
You have the right to know what your health care will cost, and providers have the responsibility to tell you.
Health care is one of the largest sectors of our economy. Yet, it’s the least transparent. In no other industry but health care are Americans compelled to pay for a service without seeing the price upfront.
Federal law requires hospitals and insurers to display prices upfront so patients can shop for healthcare services, tests, or procedures, just as you shop for anything else on the market.
But that isn’t happening. Americans are still getting hit with surprise medical bills, when it’s too late to negotiate. Nearly 60% of people report receiving a medical bill they weren’t expecting.
We would never buy anything without knowing how much it is going to cost upfront. Prices in health care should work the same way.
Help us ensure that happens by sharing your story. Has the American healthcare system ripped you—or someone you know—off? We want to hear what happened.
Submit Your Story
NOTE: You do not need to submit private, medical information to share your story. Simply send us a short summary of what happened.
Did you know that over 90% of healthcare spending is on non-emergency health care: meaning, with the right information, patients can plan and shop around for their services and treatments in advance.
Source
Rebekah Bydlak: Education Savings Accounts and Homeschooling
Ashley Elliott: AFC Future Leaders Fellowship
Get Serious About Crime in NYC
New York State’s criminal justice reforms put criminal welfare above citizen welfare.
Consequently, crime in New York City has increased 37% since the bail reform law took effect almost two years ago, and crime is at its highest rate in over 30 years.
Here is what NYC’s Police Commissioner Keechant Sewel had to say about the impact of these pro-criminal reforms:
Let’s be clear: Nonviolent, first-time offenders deserve a second chance, as the spirit of the state’s 2020 criminal justice reforms envisioned, however, judges should be given the ability to hold career and violent criminals in custody pending trial. We need to maintain the reforms we all agree on — yet at the same time, pull together to keep New Yorkers from being harmed. Our collective focus must be on the victims of crime.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams agrees:
There is nothing acceptable about individuals walking into stores, taking what they want, walking out and then, when they’re arrested for the action, for people to say we are criminalizing the poor; no we’re not.
We agree with Police Commissioner Sewell and Mayor Adams. Rising crime rates are menacing to society and contribute to trauma and distress within the communities where they’re perpetrated.
Yet New York Governor Kathy Hochul and politicians in Albany are beholden to progressives who refuse to listen to the victims of crimes in conversations about public safety, and continue to implement policy and file legislation that promotes decarceration and de-policing. The results are grim, and it is black and Hispanic communities that suffer the most — the very demographic these progressive policies purport to help.
According to New York City’s own crime data, in NYC in 2021, blacks and Hispanics, who made up 48.5% of the city’s population, accounted for 90.7% of murder victims in the city, 96.9% of shooting victims, 73.2% of rape victims, 71.5% of robbery victims, 79.8% of felony assault victims, and 52.8% of grand larceny victims.
Additionally, the lack of consequences has hurt the entire community in NYC. Just ask the bodega owners who shuttered their business because of unrelenting thefts that go unpunished; or subway riders, who witness threats of, or actual, violence regularly.
Fair sentencing laws do and should prevail, but letting violent, repeat offenders off because judges can’t consider propensity for past crimes is a perverse form of justice. The data doesn’t lie — crime is up as a direct consequence of these misguided policy reforms.
It’s time to stand up to progressive bullying of New Yorkers.
If our New York State representatives really want to improve outcomes for underserved and diverse neighborhoods, they can start by helping to stop the crime rampant in the NYC community!
Tell our representatives in the New York State Assembly and members of the New York State Senate Crime Victims, Crime And Correction Committee that progressive interests that are advancing decarceration and de-policing policies are hurting our community.
Join us in reforming the reforms!
