JoAnne Fischer Honored

Today, the White House honored ten Champions of Change who are dedicated to improving access to health care. These individuals are helping others in their community understand the impact and opportunities from the health care law, the Affordable Care Act.  Among those ten is  

JoAnne Fischer is a community activist and nationally recognized leader advocating for women, children and families. She is the Executive Director of the Maternity Care Coalition (MCC), a statewide maternal and child health organization, whose signature MOMobile program has provided outreach and family support services to over 80,000 pregnant women and parents of infants at nine neighborhood sites in Southeastern Pennsylvania, including one at a women’s  correctional facility. MCC is now also the largest Early Head Start provider in Pennsylvania.  MCC's Policy team has researched and published groundbreaking reports such as "Childbirth at a Crossroads" and Prenatal Care Capacity in Philadelphia.

 

JoAnne is chair of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition; immediate past chair of the Maternal Child Health Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and has served on the boards of the Girl Scouts of the USA and the National Women's Health Network.  A longtime advocate for National Health Reform, she organized a summit on Health Reform: Time to Push for Mothers and Babies in 1992; led a town meeting on Making Health Reform Work for Women and Children in 2010 and helped plan a session addressing Affordable Care Act implementation at the 2011 APHA Annual Meeting. MCC is a member of PA Health Access Network and Raising Women's Voices Coalition and has taken leadership in drafting and organizing around "Insuring Maternity Care" legislation in Pennsylvania.