Why Health Care Reform Is a Women's Issue

We all know stories of women who have gone through hell just to get medical care:

• A co-worker who spent hours on the phone pleading with the insurance company to cover a life-saving procedure
• A friend with diabetes who had to choose between buying groceries for her kids or filling her insulin prescription
• A cousin who paid through the nose for private insurance because her job didn't offer insurance and she has a very rare genetic disorder
• A neighbor who stayed in a bad relationship because her husband's job offered good health insurance

These are all women I know. They could be women you know.  Women seem to bear the brunt of the health care crisis in this country. According to the Kaiser Foundation, there are approximately 17 million women who are uninsured.  That's nearly 1 in 5 adult women who have no health insurance. Men contribute to nearly two-thirds (63%) of the uninsured over all.

The good news is that most women do have health insurance.

• 64% have employer-based coverage
• 10% are on Medicaid.
• 6% have private policies
• 3% are enrolled in other government programs (i.e., military)

The bad news is that women are much more likely than men to be covered as a dependent on a spouse's employer-sponsored health insurance. (This may change as the "he-cession" continues.) Twenty-five percent of women (23.7 million) are covered as dependents. This makes them more vulnerable to losing their insurance if their spouse loses his job or the employer drops family coverage.  They are also more likely to lose their insurance if they are divorced or widowed.  (I know one woman who divorced her husband of 40 years when she was 62 years old. Since she wasn't eligible for Medicare yet, she had to negotiate for three years of health insurance in the divorce settlement.)

Only 39% of women (37 million) have their own job-based insurance.  These are the women the system is supposedly "working" for but health care costs are rising every day whether you have insurance or not. Every woman deserves quality, affordable health insurance.

Health care reform is a woman's issue.

It's going to be a long, hot summer in Washington as Congress tries to churn out some sort of health care reform legislation. By my count, there are at least five different proposals on the table and honestly, it's starting to look like there are too many cooks in the kitchen. Things are getting complicated, messy and expensive. Some have even suggested health care reform is too hard to do, at least right now. (Yes, I'm talking to you, Diane Feinstein.)

But health care reform can't wait, because women's health care can't wait. Study after study shows that if we have health insurance we take better care of ourselves. We go to the doctor when we're sick.  We fill the prescriptions that we need. We go for our annual Pap smears, mammograms and cholesterol screenings. Every woman has the right to good health, but as it stands, not every woman has the right to health insurance.

Contact your representative and your senators.  Tell them what you want to see in health care reform. They want to know what you think.  This is one of the most important pieces of legislation that will ever pass the United States Congress.

You have a voice. Use it.