Unmarried Women Will Greatly Benefit from Health Reform

[NJmaverick]

This week the president signed into law historic legislation that will vastly improve the U.S. health care system, allowing tens of millions more Americans to get the health insurance and health care they need. One group that stands to gain immensely from the new health care system is unmarried women, one-quarter of whom (age 18-64) are uninsured.

Unmarried women currently face several obstacles to obtaining insurance. Many work in jobs that do not offer insurance and many cannot afford insurance on the individual market. If they try they’ll likely run up against discriminatory pricing based on their gender (“gender rating”) or face denial because of pre-existing conditions, which in some states include domestic violence or just having had a baby. And while many poor unmarried women may be able to qualify for Medicaid, eligibility rules are very strict, differ widely by state, and women without children usually do not qualify.

Further, women’s access to health insurance continues to be linked to their marital status. Forty percent of married women have insurance as a dependent through a husband’s plan, but unmarried women rarely have this avenue open to them. Some employers offer family coverage to domestic partners or to the young adult children of employees, but most do not.

Meanwhile, high out-of-pocket expenses and lifetime limits on medical coverage mean that many unmarried women who have insurance but obtain care for serious illnesses or injuries may face extraordinarily high, unaffordable costs. In these situations medical bankruptcy is all too common.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/03/unmarried_health.html

[blue neen]

1. I love the picture of the woman with the "Thank You" sign.

I need to get one of those signs! :)

[Odin2005]

2. Unless they need an abortion and can't afford it.

Then they are screwed.

[csziggy]

5. +1000000000000000000000 n/t

[katandmoon]

7. x2

[FrenchieCat]

6. The thing is, many young women end up with an unplanned pregnancy,

precisely because it has been made very difficult without insurance
to obtain a continuous reliable uninterrupted supply of Birth Control.

Birth control prescriptions are not anything you can get in more than 6 month
supplies, unless one uses some of the methods that are a bit more long lasting,
but those really shouldn't be used without continuous supervision of a Physician.

Many poor women, especially the teens, have relied on planned parenthood
to obtain their family planning birth control supplies. However, unless
one truly plans, getting an appointment at Planned Parenthood can take weeks,
if not sometimes months. The breaks between supplies, and the lack of planning some women end
up not doing, for whatever their reasons, has not worked out well for many.

I think young unmarried women being assured of the availability of birth control
in a continuous manner will strike a blow at abortion rates, and that should be
a welcomed development.

But I know you know that.

[MajorChode]

8. How exactly would they be less screwed without HCR?

Would not being able to afford all heath care including abortions make them feel better?

[Warren Stupidity]

32. Well they might have less disposable income

after purchasing health care that is now affordable, so in some cases there is an indirect harm that the odious abortion restriction known as The Hyde Amendment coupled with HCR could cause harm. That is a pretty weak argument, but the Hyde Amendment remains odious.

[treestar]

45. Geez

so that trumps those who have illnesses? Older women? Their health means nothing unless - unless what, since nothing has changed regarding abortion.

[Odin2005]

50. So that makes it OK to throw women under the bus? OK, gotcha!

[kestrel91316]

3. High out-of-pocket costs and high premiums (in spite of my excellent health)

have kept me out of the insurance market for at least 10 of the past 18 years.

I'm not part of a sacred "family". Single women are second-class citizens. This bill will help.

But what i really want to hear is an end to referring to people as "families" rather than "people" or "citizens" or "individuals". The family THIS and family THAT crap since the Reagan era gets pretty damned old.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Yep. I just want to hurl when I hear some politician going on about

"American families." Not all of us are members of families, or at least we don't live with them. We're on our own, and it's pretty clear that if you aren't part of a "family" you have little value in this society. Maybe because "doing it (whatever it is) for the children" is a tired but ubiquitous political ploy. Or maybe because people who are not married and reproducing are not considered to be entirely normal. In any event, I, too, am sick of that "family" crap.

[Foo Fighter]

29. Oeclot, unless you as a woman have decided to procreate, you are nothing.

Then again, single women that have kids are "welfare mothers that are bleeding the taxpayers dry. They keep on having kids just to get more money from the system." Apparently single women with kids are absolutely rolling in the dough and are nothing but parasites on society. Good to know.

OTOH, single women that seek abortions should be put in jail and serve the time befitting the babykillers that they are.

So, what's a single woman to do? Well, if you have kids, you shouldn't have. If you're pregnant, you HAVE to have the kid. If you're not pregnant and have no kids, your lot in life is to STFU and pay your taxes (with no deductions) or find some guy and procreate in order to add kids to the roles of those paying the Ponzi Scheme that is Wall Street, backed up by the US Govt. Unless you're willing to do that, well, I'm afraid I have to question just why you want to be an American citzen.

:sarcasm: <- just in case its needed. These days, sometimes it's hard to tell.

[bobbolink]

9. "The family THIS and family THAT crap since the Reagan era gets pretty damned old."

Thank you Thank You, THANK YOU!

The continuous message is that unless you are in a "family", you are NOTHING.

It hurts.

[Tumbulu]

10. Yes, I find the discussion of "family" revolting

and I even now have a daughter, but still am distrurbed by the seemingly endless use of the term in an exclusionary way.

[kestrel91316]

14. I have always felt that its burgeoning use by the RW was specifically intended

to make singles feel ostracized, excluded, and unimportant.

[Tumbulu]

42. I agree with you and I have many single male friends who feel

the same.

Divide and conquer.

[undeterred]

13. +100

[dflprincess]

18. This bill still allows high out of pockets

so a lot of people will stil be priced out of health care even though they are paying for "coverage".

[FrenchieCat]

20. Not on routine check ups, which would include Mamogram and Pap smears.....

That service has to be part of the insurance plan,
without any out of pocket additional expenses.

[dflprincess]

21. Which is great - unless those routine tests come back odd and you need follow up

then you've moved from screening/preventative medicine to diagnostic and you're on the hook for the out of pockets.

Annual mammograms and pap smears don't do a whole lot of good if you can't afford the follow up.

[FrenchieCat]

22. Then it will depend on how much you make, but.....

Women and Health Care: Stay Focused on the Real Benefits of Reform
Women have a lot at stake in the debate over health care reform. Some seven in ten women are either uninsured or underinsured, and more than half report forgoing care or preventive visits because they can’t afford it. Meanwhile, insurance companies can charge women more for coverage, and can exclude them from plans because of “pre-existing conditions” like pregnancy or being victims of domestic abuse. Finally, women facing cancer or other serious illnesses are far more likely to suffer financial collapse when faced with benefit caps and high out-of-pocket spending limits.

This state of affairs is unacceptable and achieving affordable, comprehensive and accessible care for all Americans should be the goal of any final health reform bill. Both the House and Senate bills would end gender rating (the practice of charging higher premiums for women) in the individual and small business markets. Both bills also would end the practice of denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions and would set minimum benefit standards that ensure access to primary care and preventive services. Finally, the two versions both cap out-of-pocket spending and get rid of lifetime or annual benefit limits.
http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/12/women-and-health-care-staying-focused-on-the-real-benefits-of-reform.html


also:
http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/the_health_care_blog/2010/03/health-reform-a-class-act.html

[dflprincess]

26. The bill allows deductibles of $1,500/year

with a max annual out of pocket of $5,960 for a single person. Those out of pockets may increase every year. The deductible is included in the out of pocket maximum but premiums and any expense your insurer decides is not covered does not count toward the max out of pocket.

Primary care and preventative services are covered. But if the annual mammogram comes back and it says you need a biopsy you're going to have to come up with the money to cover the deductible and, depending on your policy (most usually have an 80/20 or 90/10 "coinsurance" after the deductible is met) you'll be paying a whole chunk of money to find out if that spot on the mammogram is benign or not. If it's not benign, just hope you found this all out at the start of your benefit year because if you're going through treatments when the new benefit year arrives, you'll be looking at paying all these out of pockets again.

Again, if you can't afford any follow up that may be needed, the annual exams are useless.

The U.S. remains the only western nation where a person dealing with a serious illness has to worry about how to pay for it.

[Foo Fighter]

28. Exactly.

"The deductible is included in the out of pocket maximum but premiums and any expense your insurer decides is not covered does not count toward the max out of pocket."

Between the out of pocket expenses and whatever the insurer decides is not covered, the average person hit with an adverse diagnosis can be hit with massive bills they will never be able to pay. No change there.

"Again, if you can't afford any follow up that may be needed, the annual exams are useless."

While the cause is noble, I have never really understood the reasoning behind, say, offering free mammograms during Breast Cancer Awareness month. After all, if the person can't afford the mammogram in the first place, they sure as hell can't afford the costs that will ensue from a positive diagnosis. Granted, there may be a number of resources available with the free mammogram to help direct them to programs, etc. that can help them out but I'd guess that, unless the person was totally destitute, they would be largely SOL as far as medical bills were concerned.

Also, the cynic in me has always seen these free clinics as possibly having ties with the insurance industry. IOW, if you're diagnosed as positive, that would put you in the "pre-existing condition" pool and you won't be able to get coverage for it should you decide to try to buy insurance after receiving the test results.

Then again, I'm not sure it that makes me a cynic or a realist.

[laughingliberal]

33. The 'bronze' level policies are 60/40 coinsurance. Yay! nt

[saracat]

40. And those would not be covered at all except for Barbara Mulkowski's

hard fought battle to include them.

[Kat45]

25. Yes. That whole "family" thing drives me crazy as well.

We are not all families. It's great to hear someone else mention that.

[Warren Stupidity]

34. I just totaled my out of pocket medical costs this year.

7200. That does not include my share of health insurance premiums, which rings up another 3000. Nobody in my family is seriously ill, and we are spending 10,200/year on health care costs.

[bvar22]

11. Gee. Thats NOT what Terry O'Neill, president of Now said on Bill Moyers last night.

""My organization looked at the entire bill at the end of the day when it was passed. And we concluded that on balance, despite the good things that are in the bill, the bill actually is bad for women."

read more here:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03262010/profile2.html

But what doe SHE know.

[TheMadMonk]

15. Yes and no. The restriction on abortions is doubleplus ungood. However...

...there do exist ways to make an end run around them so it's not a totally unmittigated disaster.

Less than perfect, but as an earlier poster pointed out making BIRTH CONTROL coverage available to more women will pretty much immediately have a huge impact on the demand for abortion services.

In the long term, more widely available and affordable birth control will ease the overall burden, as the number of unwelcome pregnacies that are nonetheless carried to term drops off.

[Leopolds Ghost]

43. Appropriate use of newspeak in the context of anyone supporting this bill

What was the newspeak term for this week's correct thinking that the so-called "public option" isn't really needed to make the bill necessary and desirable to ensure that the uninsured become insured -- by passing a law making it illegal for them not to (like Welfare reform, which many so-called Dems also supported)?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. The bill still allows AGE discrimination

Oh, and count me as another single person who is tired of everything being stated in terms of "families."

Some of us are single by choice. Some of us wanted to get married and it didn't happen. Some of us were married and it didn't work out.

But we're people, too.

[Skittles]

16. the ignorance about this bill is fucking astounding, Lydia

and I completely agree with you about the family bullshit

[saracat]

24. Yeppers.

[amandabeech]

19. The age discrimination mean much higher premiums.

Unfortunately, the subsidies are not any higher, but many of us are making less now than we did when we were younger.

If things continue in my life as they are now, I won't be able to afford even the cheapest of the Obama plans. I can afford something, but I'll probably make just too much for a subsidy, and even if I manage to keep my income below the subsidy cap, it will still be extremely difficult to afford it.

Folks like me will show up for Medicare a lot sicker than we need to be, and that's not good for anyone's budget.

[KatyaR]

31. Count me, three.

Apparently single older women don't really count and fade from view as they age.

[LWolf]

38. Thank you. nt

[amborin]

44. Age and Gender Discrim against Women:

It imposes a bizarre requirement on insurance plan enrollees who buy coverage through the health insurance exchanges to write two monthly checks (one for an abortion care rider and one for all other health care). Even employers will have to write two separate checks for each of their employees requesting the abortion rider.

This burdensome, elaborate system must be eliminated. It is there because the Catholic bishops and extremist abortion rights opponents know that it will result in greatly restricting access to abortion care, currently one of the most common medical procedures for women.

Fact: President Obama made an eleventh-hour agreement to issue an executive order lending the weight of his office to the anti-abortion measures included in the bill. This move was designed to appease a handful of anti-choice Democrats who have held up health care reform in an effort to restrict women's access to abortion. This executive order helps to cement the misconception that the Hyde Amendment is settled law rather than what it really is -- an illegitimate tack-on to an annual must-pass appropriations bill. It also sends the outrageous message that it is acceptable to negotiate health care reform on the backs of women.

Fact: The bill permits age-rating, the practice of imposing higher premiums on older people. This practice has a disproportionate impact on women, whose incomes and savings are lower due to a lifetime of systematic wage discrimination.

Fact: The bill also permits gender-rating, the practice of charging women higher premiums simply because they are women. Some are under the mistaken impression that gender-rating has been prohibited, but that is only true in the individual and small-group markets. Larger group plans (more than 100 employees) sold through the exchanges will be permitted to discriminate against women -- having an especially harmful impact in workplaces where women predominate.



About 23 million people will remain uninsured nine years out. That figure translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths annually and an incalculable toll of suffering.

* Millions of middle-income people will be pressured to buy commercial health insurance policies costing up to 9.5 percent of their income but covering an average of only 70 percent of their medical expenses, potentially leaving them vulnerable to financial ruin if they become seriously ill. Many will find such policies too expensive to afford or, if they do buy them, too expensive to use because of the high co-pays and deductibles.

* Insurance firms will be handed at least $447 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize the purchase of their shoddy products. This money will enhance their financial and political power, and with it their ability to block future reform.

* The bill will drain about $40 billion from Medicare payments to safety-net hospitals, threatening the care of the tens of millions who will remain uninsured.

* People with employer-based coverage will be locked into their plan's limited network of providers, face ever-rising costs and erosion of their health benefits. Many, even most, will eventually face steep taxes on their benefits as the cost of insurance grows.

* Health care costs will continue to skyrocket, as the experience with the Massachusetts plan (after which this bill is patterned) amply demonstrates.

* The much-vaunted insurance regulations - e.g. ending denials on the basis of pre-existing conditions - are riddled with loopholes, thanks to the central role that insurers played in crafting the legislation. Older people can be charged up to three times more than their younger counterparts, and large companies with a predominantly female workforce can be charged higher gender-based rates at least until 2017.

* Women's reproductive rights will be further eroded, thanks to the burdensome segregation of insurance funds for abortion and for all other medical services.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/23-10

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. I've been talking about this with my brother the doctor

My current insurance policy would bankrupt me if I got seriously ill, because I have a $10,000 out-of-pocket for in-network treatment and a $25,000 out-of-pocket for out-of-network treatment in addition to premiums.

Since the last few months have seen reduced income, I could really use that premium money for other things, and I don't mean wide-screen TVs--I mean paying off what I had to borrow to live on and making it possible to pay my estimated tax on time.

If I do this, I will be on a better financial footing if I have to sign up for mandated insurance in four years' time. (The mandated insurance is more expensive than what I have now, and since my income crosses back and forth over the subsidy line from year to year.) I may even be better off paying the fine at that time, since I would then have little time to wait before going on Medicare.

To paraphrase Jesus, "The insurance companies were made for people, not people for the insurance companies."

However, the current "health care" bill seems to reverse that.

[amborin]

52. what would bronze provide for you?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

53. Only 60% of my medical expenses ON TOP OF hefty premiums and

copays. Big whoop.

[amborin]

54. then that confirms what everyone has been saying: the co-pays & deductibles will

be prohibitive for many

[babylonsister]

17. Nothin' for middle-aged divorced women?

x(

[saracat]

23. Yeah as a male your POV is invaluable on this. But hey all unmarried women

writing seperate checks just in "case" they may need an abortion are sure to be thrilled.

[NJmaverick]

30. A woman wrote this article, but hey make up whatever you need to

to support your flawed position.

[saracat]

39. Funny doesn't appear like many single or middle aged women support this possition

much. Most apprently have the "flawed reasoning" of someone like themselves. And just because a woman wrote that article doesn't make it anymore believable. It may shock you but women can be insurance company schills as well.

[treestar]

46. First you discounted another's opinion because he was of the male gender

then when you find out the article was written by a woman, suddenly gender no longer matters!

:rofl:

[saracat]

47. Got a problem with understanding two ideas at the same time don't you? I didn't diss the author.

I dissed the OP, whose opinion as a male is of little consequence.it is his opinion about the article I discount but I imagine that distinction is too fine a point for some to understand.

[eridani]

27. Or unless they are older that 50 and have to pay three times as much for shit that doesn't cover

--anything until you meet outrageously high deductibles.

[glinda]

35. If I divorced my wonderful husband I would get Health Care help. As it is right now

by being married, I pay high premiums monthly and if I work (which I cannot due to needing surgery I cannot afford), we would pay more taxes and actually end up with less money as we are just in that certain bracket where we straddle barely surviving and getting screwed.

[laughingliberal]

36. "that certain bracket where we straddle barely surviving and getting screwed"

This bracket is one I know well and tried, during the debate, to emphasize the problems facing them. I see the bill as putting still more downward pressure and working and middle class Americans further destroying the dream of upward mobility.

[glinda]

37. We don't want upward mobility, we just want to be able to pay our bills.

[laughingliberal]

41. Understood. The further reaching implications of the predicament of people like yourself

is that our chance to have a growing middle class will be seriously curtailed by this. After all, if people can't keep up with the bills, what chance is there for them to make any gains?

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

49. There will be less discretionary income which will also put the rest of the economy in the crapper.

[Scurrilous]

48. Kick

:kick: