A Gender Divide on Healthcare Reform?
Posted June 22nd, 2009 by Elizabeth Cox
My friend and her husband are getting divorced: three small children and irreconcilable differences. He is a partner at a law firm and earns $800,000 per year. She is a stay-at-home mother. After the divorce, who will pay more for health insurance?
As regressive as it may seem, my unemployed single mother friend will pay more for healthcare than her law-partner ex even though they are the same age and both in good health. She will either go on COBRA and pay 102 percent of her husband’s employer’s healthcare plan charge while her husband’s health care bill will remain subsidized by his employer or she will purchase individual health insurance. Insurance companies in most states including my home state of Connecticut discriminate against women. They charge women significantly more for individual health insurance than men for the same age/risk category (See NY Times article, Women buying health policies pay a penalty, Robert Pear, October 29, 2008).
A key lynchpin to financial independence is affordable health care. Through price discrimination and a system that makes insurance more expensive for part time workers than those with full benefits, insurance companies have chosen to make healthcare reform a woman’s issue. It’s time to unite our voices and advocate for a public option on health insurance.
2 Comments
In a time where we really need someone or someplace to weed out the truths and nontruths about Healthcare, we’ve got the MOM’s… GREAT.
Then I see this story were a mom is worried about healthcare for her child when she gets divorced from a husband who makes $800,000.00. Now I know this is not the website I’m looking for!!!!!
I know dozens of people in this day and age, who would jump at the oppertunity to FAKE a Marrige to someone who makes that kind of money..
GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!
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June 22, 2009 at 11:30 pm by Chris JohnsonA national healthplan will not make your divorced friend any more secure. Nor will it be any less expensive. The main reason that healthcare is so costly are twofold:
1. The government plans of Medicaid and Medicare are not paying healthcare providers sufficient to cover their cost. This does not even include any overhead and proft! Because Medicaid and Medicare are such large percentages of the healthcare system for most hospitals, they can’t walk away from the business so instead, they take what the government offers and offsets their losses in the government programs to commercial and private paying citizens. As government plans fall further from their true costs of care, the hospital systems are forced to increase the cost to private and commercial plan members.
2. Most citizens can get low-cost insurance if they shop around and are willing to pay most of the out-of-pocket expense. We buy insurance for our cars in the event that a catastrophic accident happens. But we would never expect our auto insurance to cover the cost of oil changes, or tire rotation. Health insurance should be viewed as no different if we agree to insure ourselves in the event of catastrophic medical conditions. I opted out of COBRA when I faced a grace period during a recent job change. Instead I went through my State Farm insurance representative and was able to get a $2 million plan that had a $5,000 deductable for $175 per month for my family of four, instead of the $1,200 a month that was offered from my COBRA plan. The savings is more than $12,000 per year, which is so much more than the cost of paying out of pocket for my prescriptions and physician office visits for my family. And I think I get better service from my doctor when I pay cash. And almost all diseases can be treated from any of the $4 prescription products that are offered in national chain pharmacies. You just need to speak up to your doctor and let them know that you will not accept the brand products. In fact, very few branded drugs today are innovative treatments. Most are me-too drugs to others that already exist on the market, or are reformulated products packaged in new dosage forms when the manufacturer can change 25 times more than the generic.
A national plan will only make things worse, with longer waiting periods for healthcare services and tests. And fewer doctors who will participate. I know that almost all of us know of doctors who are now refusing to take Medicaid or Medicare patients. Why? Because the government is a pain to work with for the undervalued price they reimburse the doctor for.
Wake up Americans and take control of your healthcare before you will have no more choice? That’s what women and mothers need today and it doesn’t come from the government!
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