Women have a particularly high stake in the health care reform debate because they “interact with the health care system more often” than men, “and so are more vulnerable to a system with soaring costs and with restrictions that hurt women especially,” the Christian Science Monitor reports.

Although more men than women are uninsured 46% to 38%, respectively women face greater hurdles in the existing health care system that reform legislation would address. For example, the House health reform bill (HR 3200) would ban “gender rating,” a practice by which health insurers charge women more than men for the same policies. Under the current system, a 25yearold woman typically pays 6% to 45% more than a man the same age for identical coverage, according to the National Womens Law Center. “The current market doesnt work very well for women,” Rep. Jan Schakowsky (DIll.), cochair of the Congressional Caucus for Womens Issues, said.

The House bill also would require insurers to cover maternity care, which many policies currently exclude or offer as a separate rider. Some insurers also deem a caesarean section a preexisting condition and reject domestic violence survivors for coverage. Both practices would be prohibited under the legislation, which would ban exclusions for preexisting conditions.

Women are more likely than men to become “economically vulnerable” and have difficulty paying medical bills, the Monitor reports. More than half of medical bankruptcies are filed by femaleheaded households, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Medicine. Women ages 55 to 64 are especially vulnerable, as they risk losing coverage as their spouses transition from employerbased coverage to Medicare, according to the Joint Economic Committee. JEC figures show that nearly 1.7 million women have lost health insurance during the recession 71% because of a spouses job loss and 29% because of their own job loss.

Members of the womens caucus are pushing for support of a public health care option as the best way to address these issues. “The public option is the strongest costcontainment piece to put into the bill,” Schakowsky said (Feldmann, Christian Science Monitor, 9/25).

Reprinted with kind permission from nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Womens Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Womens Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.

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