Brigette Courtot, Senior Health Policy Analyst

by Brigette Courtot, Policy Analyst
National Women’s Law Center

Reading the New America Foundation’s new report “The Cost of Doing Nothing: Why the Cost of Failing to Fix Our Health System is Greater than the Cost of Reform,” prompted a guilty memory for me. It involved my very first car, a little-known domestic model that had seen better days but which I loved nonetheless because it was mine. As much as I loved this car, one might think that I would have heeded the advice of my elders, who encouraged regular oil changes and close attention to strange noises under the hood. But I was 16 and not very interested in advice—I did next to nothing to fix or maintain my little car and eventually suffered the consequences. When it finally died on me, the estimated repairs were too expensive and I couldn’t keep the car.

The compelling argument put forth by the authors of “The Cost of Doing Nothing,” can easily be applied to my teenaged vehicular neglect. Sometimes it costs far more to do nothing than to make the changes that are necessary for improvement.  When it comes to our dysfunctional health care system, eschewing comprehensive reform and maintaining the status quo is the equivalent of running an old car into the ground.  If we don’t pursue a major fix for the problems that plague the United States health system, things will only get worse.  Consider these frightening statistics from the report:

• By 2016, the average cost of job-based family health coverage will climb to over $24,000 a year (that’s more than 45 percent of the median household income)

• In 2007, the economy lost as much as $207 billion because of the poor health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured (by most estimates, this amount of money could adequately cover the uninsured)

by Brigette Courtot, Policy Analyst
and Golda Philip, Health Fellow
National Women's Law Center

Today, a woman earns 77 cents for every dollar that a man earns. This wage gap is distressing in and of itself, but it becomes even more significant when you consider that a woman’s relative poverty could be a matter of life or death. Simply put, those with the fewest resources in this country are also the least likely to have access to high-quality health care. Not surprisingly, lower-income women experience poorer health outcomes, many of which could be prevented through access to high-quality care.

Insurance coverage is a major factor in the health inequities that poor families experience.  The relationship between access to health care and access to health insurance is well-documented, and women who are poor or near-poor are at greatest risk for being uninsured. While public health insurance programs play a critical role in extending coverage to many low-income women and their families (state Medicaid programs, for instance particular, cover more than 20 million women), there are millions more who don’t qualify for public health insurance. Their income may exceed program limits (in nearly half of the states, even a working parent with an annual income of $12,000 earns too much to qualify for coverage) or they may not meet other stringent eligibility criteria.