SEIU nurses and healthcare workers who care for patients everyday know that there are still too many patients who cannot afford the healthcare coverage they need, including contraception. But thanks to the nation's healthcare law, this is about to change. Starting this August, most health insurance plans will be required to cover women's preventive services, including contraception, without charging a co-pay or deductible. This is a tremendous milestone for women's health and equality in our country.

And yet, this decision has come under attack by some in the Catholic hierarchy because of the administration's decision not to expand an exception it created for churches and religious institutions to encompass a broader set of "religiously -affiliated" employers, such as hospitals and universities.

Here are the facts:

• The healthcare law seeks to improve women's health by expanding preventive coverage, not to interfere with personal religious beliefs. Religious institutions--churches--are exempt.
• Birth control use is nearly universal among women of child-bearing age and 98 percent of Catholic women will use birth control at some point during their lives. The law seeks to increase access and affordability.
• No woman will be forced to buy or use contraception and no doctor will be forced to prescribe it.
• In 28 states, Catholic hospitals and institutions are required to offer contraceptive insurance coverage under existing state law.

If the religious exemption were expanded nearly 500,000 women who work in Catholic Hospitals could be denied coverage.

Far too often, women's healthcare choices are driven by the reality that the cost for gas and groceries comes first. The expansion of preventive coverage under the Affordable Care Act will bring real economic and emotional relief to the millions of women who prior to the healthcare law, had nowhere to turn.

SEIU Nurses are speaking out in their communities and standing up for the freedom of women to make their personal health decisions with their families and physicians, not their employers. Here is some of what they are saying across the country:

"As a registered nurse for more than twenty-five years, I applaud President Obama and Secretary Sebelius for standing strong to make sure all women -- no matter where they work -- will have access to affordable birth control. Too often, working women are unable to afford the family planning help they need."

- Dian Palmer, RN, President of SEIU Healthcare Wisconsin and President of the Nurse Alliance of SEIU Healthcare.

"As a nurse, I know the decision not to expand the exception was the right one--as a matter of public health, respect for individual conscience and simple fairness to Ohio women and their families. This is a decision that should be made 'between a woman and her God' -- not between a woman and her employer."

- Beth Zaworski, RN, Mercy Regional Medical Center, Lorain, Ohio,

* The author is employed by Catholic Health Partners.

"Reality Check: Just because most women's insurance policies will now cover contraception thanks to the healthcare law does not mean women must use that benefit. Also, the rule from the Department of Health and Human Services gives religious employers, such as churches, a waiver on the requirement....

"Concern about employers whose principles would be offended by having to underwrite such coverage ignores the principles of the thousands of Iowans who would be denied this insurance coverage if the exception were expanded. Further, evidence demonstrates that employers would not really be underwriting this coverage, since their premiums would likely not change, or could even decrease, when contraceptive coverage is included."

- Cathy Glasson, RN, Coralville, IA

"As a Catholic, my mother had ten pregnancies within less than twelve years. With birth control, her pregnancies could have been spaced so as to minimize the extreme physical, emotional, financial, and psychological toll placed upon her and our family."

- Mary McNaughton RN, BSN, Everett, WA

An arbitrator has ordered the State of Maine to reinstate, with back pay, a Maine Bureau of Insurance worker whom it fired in 2010 for marrying an insurance company manager two years earlier.

"Most of the people I've shared my story with look at me and say, 'Okay, what did you really get fired for?' No one can believe I got fired just because of my marriage, but it's true," Michael Nadeau said. "It's right there in my letter of termination."

Anne Head, commissioner of the Maine Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, wrote to Nadeau in June 2010:

"Your marriage to an insurance company manager represents a conflict of interest. As a result of this determination, your employment with the Bureau of Insurance will cease."

Today, SEIU and Priorities USA Action released the second Spanish language radio ad of the joint campaign to educate voters about the "two faces" of Mitt Romney.

Read the English and Spanish ad transcript here.

Airing in Florida and Nevada, the ad will further serve to remind voters of Romney's insincere and disingenuous outreach strategy to Hispanic voters, as well as highlight the former Massachusetts Governor's hypocritically-low tax rate despite his millionaire status. While accusing immigrants of coming to this country to look for handouts, Romney helped himself to a massive handout on the federal government's dime with a tax rate of 13.9 percent.

Protesters in Seattle delivered a giant check to Wells Fargo today, showing the $18 billion in special tax benefits the corporation has received from Congress. More than 200 unemployed Seattleites, students, community activists, and allies called on the bank to pay its fair share of taxes.

While most Americans are receiving W-2's and getting ready to pay taxes, Wells Fargo enjoys special benefits that reduce its federal income tax bill to less than nothing, with a $681 million refund.

More than 150 demonstrators outfitted in goggles, snorkels flippers and life preservers filled Boston, MA's financial district today to call attention to the scourge of underwater mortgages. Nationally, 25 percent of mortgages are underwater - meaning the amount owed on the mortgages exceeds the value of the home.

PHOTO: LA home care workers celebrate the kick-off their living wage campaign

On January 14th, more than 700 home care workers gathered in downtown Los Angeles to kick off the LA Wins campaign, which is focused on ensuring that home care workers receive a county living wage of $9.65 an hour. For many caregivers in California, an increase of .65 cents per hour would go a long way in buying food, buying gas and paying the bills.

Philadelphia area parents, students, members of Occupy Philadelphia and a host of community advocacy groups rallied at the Center City Wells Fargo branch today, calling on the bank to pay back the millions they made on bad deals with the city and the Philadelphia School District.

According to a recent report by the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, the city and School District have lost more than $332 million in net interest payments and cancellation fees related to swaps negotiated with bailed out financial institutions including Wells Fargo.

Unemployed workers, community activists from One Pittsburgh, and its coalition partners marched to the Verizon Wireless outlet to demand Verizon spend its money in a way that benefits Pennsylvania, not to purchase tax laws for the 1%.

In recent years, Verizon has paid more to lobbyists than it is has paid in taxes.The activists gathered in Market Square to call attention to giant corporations like Verizon that attempt to rig the system for the super rich while engaging in mass layoffs and reductions of benefits for their employees.

Following up on the December K Street demonstration and Take Back the Capitol protests, more than 200 District of Columbia residents joined a sit-in at PEPCO headquarters today and demanded a meeting with the utility company's CEO Joe Rigby.



The protesters, faced with poor service from the "Worst in the Nation" utility, were fueled by PEPCO's recent $42.5 million rate hike request and its executives' obscene compensation. CEO Rigby received a $105,000 salary increase this year, on top of earning $8.8 million annually between 2008 and 2010.