Womenstake

The Gender Gap in Health Care: A Checklist for Change

by Andrea Irwin

Health care is quickly becoming the hottest political topic at both the state and federal levels, yet, we don’t often hear about the role gender plays in health care access and affordability generally.  If you don’t have health insurance or can’t afford your birth control pills or the newest mammogram technology, then how meaningful are the new breakthrough medical advancements?

Rewriting History to Cut Women’s Health Care Coverage

by Andrea Irwin

The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is up for reauthorization by Congress this year.  Did you know that SCHIP not only provides coverage to children, but also to some of their parents?

SCHIP provides health insurance coverage to approximately 500,000 low-income parents.  Opponents of family-based coverage in SCHIP have been threatening to cut off this vulnerable population, leaving them with no viable alternatives for obtaining health care coverage.  They claim that because there is no “A” in SCHIP, no adults should benefit from the program even though there has been bipartisan support for covering parents throughout the program’s history.  In fact, when SCHIP was enacted in 1997 to target low-income children, states that already covered these children through Medicaid were encouraged by both the Clinton and Bush administrations to expand SCHIP coverage to low-income parents, emphasizing this strategy as a powerful tool to reduce the growing number of uninsured.

In states with family-coverage programs, children were more likely to get enrolled, access health care services, and stay enrolled.  Not only is parent coverage good for kids, it’s good for the parents too!  It’s a win-win!