Feminists For Choice

Last week the Democrats unveiled their version of the health care reform bill. In a nutshell, the bill would require that all Americans have health insurance and that all employers offer insurance. Medicaid eligibility would be expanded. Insurance companies would no longer be allowed to deny coverage based on a pre-existing condition. Funding for community health centers would be increased. And a new advisory committee headed by the US Surgeon General would standardize insurance coverage.

All of these proposals are important, but none of them would guarantee that women have access to reproductive health services. This is from the Feminist Majority Foundation:

Within our current health care system, women endure serious barriers to proper health care as they suffer higher health costs compared to men and are less likely than men to be eligible for coverage from their employers. According to this fact sheet, there are some major health provisions for women in the draft of the house bill including banning gender rating so women cannot be denied coverage based on pre-existing conditions or a history of health problems, which often includes survivors of domestic violence.

We need to advocate for comprehensive care for women that includes standardized reproductive health services as basic human rights. Extensive evidence proves that women’s overall health is directly linked to their reproductive health, thus any effort to improve the system, and therefore our nation’s health, must be rooted in providing accessible, affordable and quality reproductive health care for women.

It’s really important that gender is not used as a factor in determining eligibility for health insurance. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to get rid of gender altogether. Cis-gendered women have very specific health care needs. And transmen and transwomen also have their own unique health care issues. This isn’t to say that cis-gendered men are perfectly healthy. What I am trying to say is that it’s important to use categories like gender to show that there is a large group of people who are affected by a particular health issue. To discard this kind of information would be foolhardy, because how can you say that you need more money to address a problem when you can’t even quantify that the problem exists?

Supporters can take action by contacting their Congressional representatives so that reproductive health care is included in the version of the bill that gets sent to President Obama. We can’t just assume that it will magically appear there simply because the Democrats control the majority in Congress.