Reform Matters: Facts & Figures

To those of us on the front lines of the fight for comprehensive health care reform - and the many Americans frustrated in their efforts to find affordable, high-quality care - it's undeniable that our health care system is in crisis. The troubling numbers below leave little doubt that while most of the country is struggling to stay healthy and make ends meet, low-income women are disproportionately affected by our health care system's failings.

NWLC Fact Sheets

• How Will Health Care Reform Benefit Women
• State-by-State Facts: How Will Health Care Reform Benefit Women
• Women and Affordability in Health Reform
• Women and Insurance Market Reforms
• Comparison of Key Provisions in the House and Senate Health Reform Bills
• Close Insurance Company Loopholes: End Gender Rating In All Health Insurance Markets

NWLC Facts & Figures

• Reform Matters Facts & Figures (Updated August 2009)
  
  
• 18 percent of women in the United States don't have health insurance. ¹
  
  
• 35 percent of American-Indian/Native Alaskan women are uninsured. ²

• 37 percent of Hispanic women don't have health insurance. ³

• Texas and New Mexico have the highest rates of uninsured women-28 percent of women ages 18-64 are without coverage in these states. ⁴

• More than half of all women-52%-report problems with accessing health care (e.g. not filling a prescription, or skipping a medical test) because of cost, compared to 39% of men. ⁵

• 3 in 5 low- and moderate-income women have problems paying their medical bills. ⁶

• Only 20 states require private insurance companies to cover annual mammograms for women over age 40. (CT, DC, HI, IL, IN, KS, ME, MA, MN, NV, NJ, ND, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, TX, WA, and WY.) ⁷

• Approximately three-quarters of adult Medicaid beneficiaries are women. ⁸

• 20 states do not have "presumptive eligibility policies to allow low-income pregnant women to receive time-sensitive prenatal care coverage while waiting for approval of their Medicaid application. (AL, AK, AZ, HI, IN, KS, MD, MN, MS, NV, ND, OH, OR, RI, SC, SD, VT, VA, WA, and WV.) Louisiana does not have such a law, but it can enroll a pregnant woman in three calendar days. ⁹

• Only 7 states have public health insurance programs (like Medicaid) that cover parents/caretakers with incomes at or above 200 percent of the federal poverty level. For a family of three, that's $36,620 each year. ¹⁰ (AZ, DC, MA, ME, MN, NJ, and WI.) In Alabama, the income eligibility limit to qualify for Medicaid for nonworking parents is 11 percent of the federal poverty level. That's roughly $2,000 per year for a family of three. ¹¹

• 13 states and DC allow private insurance companies that cover prescription drugs to exclude coverage for FDA-approved contraceptives. (AL, AK, DC, FL, IN, KS, LA, MS, NE, PA, SC, SD, TN, and UT.) ¹²

• 16 percent of all U.S. women - including 23 percent of Hispanic women, 24 percent of African-American women and 30 percent of American-Indiana/Alaskan Native women - receive late or no prenatal care. ¹³

• According to World Health Organization estimates, 33 countries have lower maternal mortality rates than the United States - including Canada, France, Ireland, Kuwait, Latvia, Malta, New Zealand, Slovakia, and the United Kingdom. ¹⁴

• The infant mortality rate among White women is 5.7 deaths per 1000 live births. The rate among African-American women is more than double that, at 13.3 deaths per 1000 live births. ¹⁵

• Between 1999 and 2008, health insurance premiums increased 119 percent, 3.5 times more than the increase in wages over the same period. ¹⁶

• Eight states and the District of Columbia fail to prevent health insurance companies from denying coverage to victims of domestic violence. ¹⁷

• Nearly 15 percent of women with functional limitations in the 45-64 age range have no health care coverage at all. ¹⁸

• In 2007, an estimated 62% of all bankruptcies had a medical cause. Researchers found that being female significantly increases the odds that a person will file medical bankruptcy. ¹⁹

• Small businesses that do not offer employee health benefits tend to have larger proportions of female workers. ²⁰

• Uninsured breast cancer patients are substantially more likely than their privately-insured counterparts to be diagnosed with advanced stage breast cancer. ²¹

• Health policy experts estimate that in 2006, at least 22,000 nonelderly adults died because they did not have health insurance. ²²

• 25 million Americans-including 16% of all women-are enrolled in an insurance plan that provides inadequate financial protection against catastrophic healthcare expense, and these "underinsured" individuals are almost as likely as the uninsured to go without needed medical care and incur medical debt. ²³

• One in five Americans report that unaffordable medical bills have led to negative financial consequences such as: using up all or most of their savings; being unable to pay for basic necessities such as food or rent; or, having to borrow money or take out a second mortgage. ²⁴

• More than a quarter of Americans report that they have experienced serious problems paying for health insurance or health care as a result of recent changes to the economy. ²⁵
  

Source Notes