Health Care & Women’s Issues
posted by Brittany BauccioThursday, December 3rd, 2009
As the health care debate continues, women’s issues are taking center stage. Now, more than ever, women are key stakeholders and must remain engaged.
This week Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D., Md.) offered an amendment that would require insurers to cover more screening and preventive care for women, with no co-payments. According to a Dec. 1 New York Times article, “Senators Pitch to Women and Elderly on Health Bill,” Mikulsi said, “Women often forgo those critical preventive screenings because they simply cannot afford it, or their insurance company won’t pay for it unless it is mandated by state law.”
But not so fast, according to the article, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R., TX) criticized Mikulski’s proposal which would develop comprehensive guidelines recommending preventive care and screenings for women, saying it would “allow yet another government agency to interfere in the relationship between a woman and her doctor.”
The New York Times Economix blog’s November 30th post, “Sex, Abortions and Health Insurance,” by New York Times blogger and University of Massachusetts economics professor, Nancy Folbre, noted that the Stupak-Pitts amendment in proposed House legislation that would prohibit companies from offering policies covering abortions in subsidized health insurance exchanges.
Folbre included comments from Wellesley economist Phillip Levine’s recent New York Times Op-Ed which labeled the controversy a “false alarm” stating that, “If health insurance reform passed, after all, the expansion of medical services to low-income women, including improved family planning services, would compensate for the risks of paying for abortions out-of-pocket.”
Folbre stated that she was “unconvinced” noting that “neither of the bills currently before either the House of Senate mandates coverage of contraceptive services, pelvic exams or counseling for sexually transmitted diseases.”
Regardless of where you stand, one thing we can all agree on is the importance of women’s health issues. It will be interesting to see how the debate plays out and how it ultimately affects women.
