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Getting to Well: Women and the Health Care Battles

The current debate over national health care insurance is often centered in Congress, with occasional sidebars contributed by talk-show hosts. Given that women are patients, caretakers and often first-responders in health care crises, Women’s eNews has asked its reporters to dig out angles of the debate that directly impact women’s well-being. We have a lot at stake in the outcome:

• Women are almost twice as likely as men to be covered as dependents in employer-sponsored plans, leaving them vulnerable if their spouse loses his job, they are divorced or they become widowed.
• Women comprise two-thirds of adult Medicaid beneficiaries. Thus, Medicaid covers 4 in 10 births in the United States and two-thirds of all family planning services. The current bills under consideration would dramatically change Medicaid eligibility criteria.

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