How much have you heard about women
in the healthcare debate? I am uncomfortable with how little I have heard, and
even more uncomfortable with what I do hear on the rare occasions it is
discussed in the media, such as an ad from late August/early September, using
scare tactics against women with breast cancer to build opposition to reform.
Here is a great clip from Rachel Maddow where she dismantles that ad and has a
discussion with the President of the National Organization for Women about how
women’s reproductive rights are not being adequately accounted for in the
healthcare debate.
Just one example of how the Baucus
healthcare bill introduced last week does not adequately address the healthcare
needs of women is that the bill, as blogger Dana Goldstein puts it, “punishes
single people—especially single moms.” The bill will give employers incentives to
hire married, rather than single, job applicants or employers may encourage
their employees to use their spouse’s healthcare coverage instead. This is
because Baucus’ bill does not include a mandate for employers to provide
healthcare to their employees, but rather asks employers to reimburse the
“affordability credits” the government provides to individuals without
healthcare. This creates incentives where an employer would probably prefer to
hire someone who already has healthcare from, say, their spouse, or to hire
someone who doesn’t have children,
so the employer will have lower reimbursement costs. The result is
that “employers weigh whether a worker earning $15,000 or $20,000 a year is
worth paying an extra several thousand dollars for, because of this subsidy
payback requirement. Why not just hire someone without kids? Or someone
married?” writes Goldstein.
Another area of concern for women is
that within Baucus’ Finance Committee bill, “there would be a
guaranteed choice in each health insurance exchange between at least one plan
that does not offer abortion services beyond rape, incest and the life of the
mother, and at least one plan that does, allowing consumers to choose their
preference. Those private plans that do
offer the services would have to segregate funds internally, so that only
private dues, and not federal subsidies, pay for actual abortion
services” (emphasis added), Time reports.
My concern arises from the latter
part of the above statement, where it becomes clear that private insurance
companies would have to set funds aside internally for abortion coverage, which
is not exactly what I would call “allowing consumers to choose their
preference”. Time also reports that “under the current private health
care system, a significant share of private health plans--numbers range from 46
percent to 87 percent, depending on
the survey--offer abortion services.” But if the
bill changes the insurance market to accommodate insurance companies that do not
provide abortion coverage, the “46 percent to 87 percent” of plans that do cover
abortions could decrease, the extent to which we can’t predict. The ACLU
recently defended a woman who struggled to have access to reproductive
healthcare in Kentucky.
Such stories should become less, not more, common, as healthcare reform
legislation moves forward, and with Baucus’ healthcare proposal, it is not at
all clear that these stories will become less common.
If these prospects for women’s
healthcare concern you, you can call your Senator to remind them that healthcare
reform must account for women’s health needs. The Senate switchboard
number is (202) 224-3121.