PIVOT’S HEALTH PLATFORM
The right to health is a fundamental human right. At the core of this statement is the assertion that every individual has the right to the highest attainable standard of health, both physical and mental. To attain an adequate standard of health requires access to quality health care as well as access to food, livable conditions, healthy work environments, and a clean environment.
Much of the current policy debate around health has focused primarily on health care coverage and cost. Health encompasses health care and many other factors that both directly and indirectly influence health. PIVOT is committed to advancing a health agenda that focuses on promoting health, reducing health disparities, and addressing the underlying causes of such disparities. To this end, PIVOT expands our health paradigm to consider issues around racial, income, and environmental inequalities, which are often root causes of health disparities.
Our Plan
Preserve and expand affordable health coverage.
Protect the Affordable Care Act (ACA) from being repealed and, if repealed, promote a replacement that at least provides the same number of people covered and the same level of coverage without increasing cost to the consumer.
Ensure that everyone has a right to quality health care, regardless of immigration status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and language or other cultural barriers.
Remove restrictions on access to health care based on discriminatory policies around English proficiency, sexual orientation, and immigration status
e.g. undocumented immigrants
e.g. the five-year bar that excludes older immigrants from federal benefits like SNAP and Medicaid for five years after they attain a qualified immigration status).
Promote workforce development that ensures cultural and linguistic competency and diversity among health care providers.
Promote awareness and protect the use of mental health services.
Raise awareness of mental health issues and the importance of mental health care given the stigma associated with mental health, the underdiagnosis and underreporting of mental health issues, and the underutilization of mental health services, particularly among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) (including Vietnamese Americans).
Increase behavioral health coverage, both for integrated behavioral health with primary care, and specialty mental health services.
Support mental health workforce development, and ensure cultural and linguistic competency training and diversity among mental health care providers.
Advance reproductive justice to promote health and well-being.
Increase access to reproductive and preventive health care.
Protect a woman’s right to choose for her own body.
Promote awareness of issues of human trafficking, including but not limited to sex trafficking (commercially sexually exploited children) and domestic violence, and support efforts to eliminate these abuses towards women and children.
Eliminate and address the root causes of health disparities (disproportionate burdens of health issues in select populations) for Vietnamese Americans.
Promote the disaggregation of health-related data that can help identify hidden health disparities, particularly in the AAPI population.
Ensure a strategic focus on communities at greatest risk.
Identify and support effective strategies to eliminate health disparities.
Promote efforts to understand the root causes of health disparities, including factors related to race, income, and environment.
Support strategies that can address these root causes of health disparities, which can include—but are not limited to—language access and entitlement programs linked to income, food access programs, affordable housing, and employment opportunities.