Health Care Reform

JWI cares deeply about women’s access to quality health care. Women participate extensively in the health care system and their needs cannot be overlooked.

In 2007 alone, 45% of women ages 18-64 were uninsured or underinsured and that number is increasing at an alarming rate.[i] Simply speaking, the health care system has failed – creating barriers where there should be access, reacting to medical emergencies instead of providing adequate prevention, and forcing families to choose between skyrocketing insurance premiums and co-payments, and basic needs such as food, rent or electricity.

Women are more likely than men to require health care throughout their lifetime, including regular visits to reproductive health care providers and long-term care for chronic conditions, and they are twice as likely to suffer from certain mental illnesses as men.[ii] Their needs are not being met.

To ensure that any health care reform package meets the specific needs of women, it must:

Eliminate Discriminatory Practices Against Women: Insurance companies routinely factor gender into setting premium levels, charging women more than men for identical coverage.
Ban unfair “Pre-existing Condition” Practices: Women are often denied or excluded from coverage because of their health history.

Ensure Comprehensive Benefits : Women are more likely than men to require regular visits with health care providers and have conditions which require regular care, particularly related to reproductive health. Often they choose to forgo necessary heath services because their ‘bare bones’ health plans do not cover benefits that are critical to maintaining their health.
Make Health Care Affordable: Health care coverage is simply too expensive now. For health reform to be successful, Congress must guarantee that women can afford to purchase and utilize quality health coverage.

These reforms must apply broadly to all insurance markets – individual coverage and group health insurance markets.

Women need Health Care Reform. We cannot settle for anything less!

[i] National Women’s Law Center and Oregon Health and Science University, Making the Grade on Women’s Health: A National and State-by-State Report Card (2007).National Report Card on Women’s Health

[ii] Elizabeth Patchias and Judy Waxman, The Commonwealth Fund, Women and Health Coverage: The Affordability Gap (Apr. 2007), http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/NWLCCommonwealthHealthInsuranceIssueBrief2007.pdf.

Health Care Reform

Advocacy