Women's Health Care: bourgeois press report
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A Step Backward for Women's Health Care?
[FONT=Times New Roman]08 March 2010
by: Maya Schenwar[/FONT]
Monday evening, after a rousing speech in Philadelphia
pushing for health reform passage, President Obama will
celebrate International Women's Day with a White House
reception honoring women around the world for their
achievements.
This recognition is important. However, International
Women's Day - the brainchild of a group of
predominantly socialist women with revolutionary dreams
of equality and basic human rights for all - presents
an opportunity for a little more expansive thinking on
the part of the Obama administration.
One item that's ripe for rethinking, ASAP: the gender
discrimination that is burning a hole through the
Senate health reform bill that's headed for a House
vote next week.
Though the Senate bill lacks the Stupak stamp of shame,
it certainly doesn't come up short in the department of
reactionary anti-choice provisions. Currently, the vast
majority of private health plans cover abortion
procedures. The Senate plan endorsed by President Obama
would severely complicate payments for
abortion-inclusive plans, requiring individuals covered
by those plans to write two separate checks - one to
cover abortion procedures and one for all other
coverage. Insurers then must deposit abortion payments
and everything-else payments into two separate
accounts.
Chances are, the new regulations would drive insurance
companies to drop abortion coverage from their plans,
according to health policy analysts. These eliminations
would impact millions of Americans: more than one-third
of adult women in the US have had at least one
abortion. When it comes to choice, the health reform
plan in its current state marks a dangerous step
backward.
The bill's shortcomings for women don't stop at
abortion. Earlier in the health-care-push season, Obama
promised a plan that would eliminate "gender rating" -
the practice of charging more for women's coverage than
for men's. Gender rating is still going strong in 40
states. Insurance companies rally around the excuse
that the policy is "actuarially based"; that women cost
more to insure than men, mostly due to pregnancy- and
birth-related medical care. Beneath that flimsy
statistical veil, it's blatant discrimination:
Insurance companies acknowledged that themselves 40
years ago when they abandoned race as a
price-determining factor.
Despite the president's promise, the Senate bill upon
which we're pinning our hopes for health reform would
not eradicate gender rating. It would openly permit the
practice for employers of businesses with 100 employees
or more, giving large employers an obvious incentive to
hire men over women to keep down insurance costs.
Gender rating also puts businesses with a mostly female
workforce - childcare centers, some school districts
and nurse associations - at a disadvantage. According
to the National Women's Law Center, "One such employer
with a predominantly female workforce estimated that,
due to gender rating, her annual premiums were $2,000
higher per employee."
As the health care debate drags on and on, there's a
lot of shushing going around. Many leading Democrats
are hoping to sweep the Senate bill's discriminatory
flaws under the rug. After all, health reform is
desperately needed, and it would be really nice to
finally push a passable bill through before we all lose
our sanity (not to mention our insurance).
However, as it stands, the health reform bill would
endanger the basic human rights of many women. This
International Women's Day, it's time for Congress and
the president to stop ignoring the bill's consequences
for women's health coverage - and start discussing
options for averting them.
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards calls for
Congress to fix the legislation's abortion caveats
during reconciliation - a move that could prove very
difficult, since reconciliation is designed to address
only items that are relevant to the budget. Jodi
Jacobson at RH Reality Check notes that the only route
to a true repair job may be a "future bill aimed at
making technical fixes to health reform."
Either way, the work to protect women's health coverage
from these sweeping restrictions and limitations must
begin now. As the International Women's Day reception
festivities wind down at the White House tonight, the
president should do some hard thinking about how to
ensure the basic human right of health care for women
here at home.
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