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Female Senators forge ahead

Posted by: Erin Kelly on Oct 12, 2009

If you've tuned into the health care debate lately you may have seen a lot of old men bickering about the small things. And while they continue to behave like fifth graders, who has stepped up to bat to show them how it's done? None other that a few good women of the Senate.

Eight female Senators banded together last week to tell their colleagues that bickering, name-calling, and nitpicking have no place in this debate. And they're right. Every month that this country goes without health care reform, approximately 3,750 Americans die due to lack of insurance.

RH Reality Check, a blog dedicated to women's health and reproductive choices, said,

The Senators' statements shed light on the various ways in which the high costs of health care and the lack of insurance coverage disproportionately affect women ... as women, as mothers, as employees, and as caregivers to aging parents and family members.

According to Think Progress, only 14 states require an individual insurance plan to cover maternity care. In other words, in 36 states, a woman can pay her premiums every month, go to the hospital to have a baby, then be told that she owes tens of thousands of dollars for maternity care she thought would be covered.

Additionally, some insurance companies consider a Caesarean section a pre-existing condition and use it as an excuse to charge ridiculously high premiums, or even drop a person's coverage.

Senator Patty Murray remarked,

Every day in this country the health insurance industry denies women access to coverage.... [W]e want to make sure that in the health care [reform effort] women get equal access to insurance.  

If a 22-year-old woman can't get insurance through her employer but is lucky enough to obtain coverage in the individual market, she can be charged up to one and half times the amount her male counterpart is charged in some states and unlimited amounts in others.

RH Reality Check writes,

In their floor statements, the Senators made clear that health reform must address discrimination in insurance costs and in access to care based on sex, especially the refusal to cover basic needs such as sexual and reproductive health care, labor and delivery care, and other essential health needs.

Women's issues don't just concern women, but anyone with a mother, daughter, sister or grandmother. Gender discrimination affects us all and we should applaud these Senators for standing up and speaking out against practices that harm women all over the country.