Whether you support a single payer system, a robust public option or no government intervention, I ask: What sense does it make that in a state with some of the world’s best medical and research facilities, the uninsured women of Texas can only dream about receiving preventive treatment or maternity care from these institutions?
In Washington, as health care reform makes its way through the much maligned congressional bureaucracy of bill-merging and conference committees, the issues surrounding women and health care must remain in the spotlight if we have any hope of realizing actual reform.
After a summer of death panel discussions and raucous town hall meetings, some of the nation’s most prominent women’s groups saw a noticeable absence in the issues important to women. Now they are ratcheting up their involvement in the health care reform debate, attempting to defeat amendments in a final bill they say will continue the rampant gender discrimination in the health care industry.
The National Women’s Law Center, a Washington-based nonprofit, is leading the charge of this aggressive campaign to galvanize women across the nation and persuade legislators to include women’s health issues in any reform negotiations.
The center launched an online campaign earlier this month that focuses on stories of women being denied or losing health coverage for many of the same reasons, including insurers citing pre-existing conditions.
The campaign, called “Being Woman is Not a Pre-Existing Condition,” argues the methods by which insurers classify many pre-existing conditions discriminate against women, making them pay higher premiums for less coverage than men receive.
In eight states and the District of Columbia, though not in Texas, health insurers can legally deny coverage to victims of domestic violence, which companies may consider a pre-existing condition.
Bluntly, insurers tell domestic violence survivors, “You made a decision to stay in an unhealthy, abusive relationship once, and we’re not going to pay for you to make the same mistake again.”
Previous Cesarian sections and being pregnant at the time they buy a policy also puts women in danger of losing or not having access to quality health care. One woman featured on ABC World News Tonight testified before Congress that, as her family shopped for new health insurance, one insurer told her that she would have to be sterilized if she wanted coverage.
The reason for such an absurd and “morally repugnant” request, as Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland put it: She had a C-section previously and the company wasn’t going to pay for another if she chose to have another child.
Further, insurance companies in 40 states and the District of Columbia are allowed to fix the price they charge women for coverage through a practice called “gender ratings.”
The practice involves insurance companies predicting the cost of coverage for an applicant based on their gender, among other factors like age and health history. This oftentimes forces women to pay higher premiums than men for less coverage than men receive.
In states with this type of practice, an estimated 4.7 million women bought health insurance under this pricing plan last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
A poll released last month by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal found that 46 percent of women rank health care as one of their top-two concerns, while only 34 percent of men share the concern.
The 12-point difference has been a lightning rod in Washington, especially for a handful of congresswomen who have taken it as their responsibility to elevate women’s health issues to importance among their male colleagues.
“I don’t need maternity care,” Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, said as the Senate Finance Committee voted on an amendment covering maternity care. “So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”
“I think your mom probably did,” Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan shot back.
As a nation, we can argue about the proper role of government in health care reform. Indeed, we have had these debates often when government expands. There is a healthy desire in the American psyche to not have the heavy hand of government determine our lives for us.
But decency and respect for the issues afflicting our fellow citizens also exist in the American psyche. These issues affect more than half of our national population and nearly half of our work force, and we should treat them as such.
Allowing our debate to devolve into whether or not we are going to care how American women are treated is neither healthy nor American.
Cervantes is a government and journalism junior.
