Non-Negotiable: Health Care Equality for Women
Posted on November 4th, 2009 by Jason Rosenbaum in Insurance Nightmares
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Our health care system is broken, nobody disputes that, and yet even in our broken system, people like me have it much better. Why? Because I'm a man.
Women are charged more for insurance. They can be denied coverage if they're been a victim of domestic violence, or if they've had a C-Section. Many insurance plans don't cover the full range of care they need. Maternity care, in particular, is hard to find. And women statistically end up spending more of their money out-of-pocket on health care, and thus are more likely than men to be uninsured.
The abuses women suffer at the hands of our health care system can be staggering:
Today a woman testified before the Senate because she was denied health insurance as a result of a c-section — unless she wanted to permanently sterilize herself:
Today, at Sen. Mikulski's HELP Committee hearing "What Women Want: Equal Benefits for Equal Premiums," we met Peggy Robertson. Peggy is a mother of two young boys, living in Colorado with her husband. Over the past few years, Peggy and her family have faced not one but two shocking cases of insurance company abuse. First, in 2007, Peggy was denied coverage by Golden Rule insurance, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group (the largest insurance company in the US), because of a previous c-section birth. What happened next is shocking (Sen. Mikulski called it "bone-chilling" and "morally repugnant"): Golden Rule said they would cover Peggy if she agreed to be sterilized. Watch the video of her story on the SEIU Blog.
One of Health Care for America Now's principles for reform is equity in health care, and that means these disparities have to end.
That's why we're joining with our coalition partner, the National Women's Law Center, to speak out today about this issue. They've put together a phenomenal site where you can contact Congress and make sure women are treated equally by our health care system, along with an excellent widget to take action:
The House bill that will be voted on shortly gives women equality in health care. So does the Senate bill. But its imperative your representatives in Washington know this issue is important to you, no matter if you're a man or a woman. It's a simple matter of equality.
I remember returning from 2 years in Japan when I was 6 months pregnant in 1980. After enjoying automatic health coverage as an employee in that country, I was rudely surprised to find that Blue Cross would not cover me, because I had a "pre-existing condition", pregnancy. I had to look for another short-term policy that covered me or the baby only if serious complications from pregnancy or childbirth occurred. So I found a city clinic nearby that had a $400 flat fee for the rest of my pre-natal care and the birth in the hospital, whether or not it had to be a Caesarean (which was nearly the case). Thirty years later and this country is still jerking its women around and gambling with their lives. What a travesty! This kind of discrimination in health insurance and refusal to see pregnancy and abortion as medical events would never have been allowed by the "fathers of our country" if they could come back today.