Reports

REPORT UPDATE: Comprehensive Health Insurance Reform: An Essential Prescription for Women.

Oct 08 2009

The status-quo health insurance system is serving women poorly. An estimated 64 million women lack adequate health insurance. Over half of all medical bankruptcies are filed by female-headed households. For too many women and their families today, quality, affordable health care is out of reach.

Women are more vulnerable to high health care costs than men. Several factors explain why.  First, women’s health needs differ from men’s, so women are obliged to interact more regularly with the health care system – regardless of whether they have adequate insurance coverage or not. Second, women are more likely to be economically vulnerable and therefore face devastating consequences when faced with a mounting pile of medical bills. The inability of the current system to adequately serve women’s health care needs has come at great expense. One recent study estimates that women’s chronic disease conditions cost hundreds of billions of dollars...

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