More than 41 million Americans are without health insurance-- a number that is likely to increase in coming months.

March is a month that dedicates varying weeks by state, dedicated to raising public awareness of the growing ranks of Americans without health care coverage and urging our nation's leaders to make covering the uninsured a top priority.

Every day, nurses, physicians and other health care workers who serve our nation's hospitals provide medical care to these people without health coverage and see the effects of delaying preventive and diagnostic care. Putting off care often has serious consequences--a longer recovery period or, in some cases, preventable death. There is a critical situation facing those without health insurance. 

During a specified Cover the Uninsured Week, attention is focused on this critical issue. The efforts of those in the healthcare industry - hospitals, health systems and health care workers - are highlighted. By providing health screenings, diagnoses and even enrollment events, they stand with a unified voice for the 41 million Americans who lack health insurance.

Finding a means to provide health care coverage is even more challenging today, with so many states facing tough fiscal decisions and budget shortfalls. Medicaid budgets are in danger, we're in a shaky economy, and finding additional health care dollars is in danger of becoming a mythical quest. Cover the Uninsured Week is a call to provide a voice for those in need. 

WASHINGTON - As the Obama administration begins to implement $85 billion in cuts to federal spending this year, no part of the budget other than defense will take a bigger hit than healthcare.

And the so-called sequester appears likely to have a disproportionate effect on areas of the health system already hobbled by years of retrenchment or underfunding, including public health and medical research.

Although the Medicare program will account for the largest chunk of dollars cut from healthcare simply because of its great size, the scheduled 2% reduction in its payments to doctors and hospitals is significantly smaller than what many public health and research programs face.

Laboratories at major universities and medical centers are already laying off scientists, even before the latest round of cuts is scheduled to take effect. And local public health officials, hit by years of cutbacks, are scaling back immunization campaigns and other efforts to track and control infectious diseases.

"They are doing cuts on top of cuts on top of cuts," said Eric Hoffman, director of the Center for Genetic Medicine Research at Children's National Medical Center in Washington. Hoffman's labs have had to delay several major projects, including new research into muscular dystrophy in children.

Also threatened are new initiatives sparked by public health crises such as mass shootings - which have generated calls for strengthening the nation's mental health system - and outbreaks of food-borne illness.

Compounding the challenges is a lack of direction from Washington. Obama administration health officials have provided little guidance about how they plan to implement many of the cutbacks and when precisely they will hit.

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Key health insurance protections for all Americans moves forward -

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today issued a final rule that implements five key consumer protections from the Affordable Care Act, and makes the health insurance market work better for individuals, families, and small businesses.

"Because of the Affordable Care Act, being denied affordable health coverage due to medical conditions will be a thing of the past for every American," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "Being sick will no longer keep you, your family, or your employees from being able to get affordable health coverage."

Under these reforms, all individuals and employers have the right to purchase health insurance coverage regardless of health status. In addition, insurers are prevented from charging discriminatory rates to individuals and small employers based on factors such as health status or gender, and young adults have additional affordable coverage options under catastrophic plans.

Today's final rule implements five key provisions of the Affordable Care Act that are applicable to non-grandfathered health plans:

• Guaranteed Availability
  Nearly all health insurance companies offering coverage to individuals and employers will be required to sell health insurance policies to all consumers. No one can be denied health insurance because they have or had an illness.
• Fair Health Insurance Premiums
  Health insurance companies offering coverage to individuals and small employers will only be allowed to vary premiums based on age, tobacco use, family size, and geography. Basing premiums on other factors will be illegal. The factors that are no longer permitted in 2014 include health status, past insurance claims, gender, occupation, how long an individual has held a policy, or size of the small employer.
• Guaranteed Renewability
  Health insurance companies will no longer refuse to renew coverage because an individual or an employee has become sick. You may renew your coverage at your option.
• Single Risk Pool
  Health insurance companies will no longer be able to charge higher premiums to higher cost enrollees by moving them into separate risk pools. Insurers are required to maintain a single state-wide risk pool for the individual market and single state-wide risk pool for the small group market.
• Catastrophic Plans
  Young adults and people for whom coverage would otherwise be unaffordable will have access to a catastrophic plan in the individual market. Catastrophic plans generally will have lower premiums, protect against high out-of-pocket costs, and cover recommended preventive services without cost sharing.

In preparation for the market changes in 2014 and to streamline data collection for insurers and states, the final rule amends certain provisions of the rate review program. And, HHS has increased the transparency by directing insurance companies in every state to report on all rate increase requests. A new report has found that the law's transparency provisions have already resulted in a decline in double-digit premium increases filed: from 75 percent in 2010 to, according to preliminary data, 14 percent in 2013.

In addition, today the U.S. Department of Labor announced an interim final rule in the Federal Register that provides protection to employees against retaliation by an employer for reporting alleged violations of Title I of the Act or for receiving a tax credit or cost-sharing reduction as a result of participating in a Health Insurance Exchange, or Marketplace. Additional information is available at www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/osha/osha20130327.htm or www.osha.gov.

For more information on how this final rule helps create a better health insurance market for consumers, please visit: http://cciio.cms.gov/resources/factsheets/marketreforms-2-22-2013.html

For information on the rights and protections guaranteed by the health care law, please visit: http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/rights/

For the full text of the proposed rule, please visit: http://www.ofr.gov/inspection.aspx