Feminists For Choice

The current health care reform package that is before Congress has no provisions for reproductive health care. And we’re not just talking about abortion coverage. The bill doesn’t include funding for pap smears, STD screenings, birth control, pre-natal care, post-natal care, or breast cancer screenings. This is absurd. Reproductive health is a fundamental part of a person’s overall health. Imagine if dental or vision care was excluded from the health care reform package. Or even better – imagine if the package specifically excluded Viagra or vasectomies. The reaction is entirely predictable, but when it comes to women’s health issues, an exclusion barely merits a yawn.

There was an article in Time Magazine this week that said that the abortion question could derail the entire health care reform package. The author concedes that federal law (aka the Hyde Amendment) already prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortion services. However, 19 Democrats have urged Nancy Pelosi to keep abortion off the list of services that will be available under the new federal health care plan. Just to be sure that abortion isn’t on the table, this week Republicans offered amendments to the health care reform package that would specifically ban abortion coverage, as well as protect physicians and pharmacists for refusing to offer reproductive health care options (even though this is already part of federal regulations).

This is despite the fact that a new poll from the National Women’s Law Center the majority of Americans (70% to be precise) favor reproductive health coverage for health care reform, and a full 60% would oppose the plan if it did not include reproductive health care. Oh, gee . . . perhaps this is because women are 52% of the population and reproductive health care effects us all? Hmmm . . . perhaps.

Lois Uttley sums up the problems with the current health care reform package really nicely at RH Reality Check:

Now, let’s turn to you Democrats who are supposedly running Congress. You are spending far too much time trying to win over colleagues who are never going to vote for health reform, no matter if you offer them abortion exclusions or new provider “conscience” laws or other provisions that would hobble health reform. You need to get over your worries that if you support inclusion of a strong public plan in health reform, somebody is going to call you a socialist.

Don’t forget that women are among the strongest supporters of moving quickly on health reform this year. Why? Women are grassroots experts on what is broken in the current health system.

Insurance plans try to squirm out of covering us when we are having babies by declaring our pregnancies to be “pre-existing conditions.” In a lot of states, insurance companies charge us more than men for health coverage, largely because of the costs of having children. They call this “gender rating.” We call it discrimination.

If we’re not ready to have children, we’re also out of luck. Some insurers don’t cover contraception. And low-income women have no coverage for abortions in the federal Medicaid program that you’re talking about expanding. It’s not included in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, either, so let’s not make that a model for health reform.

If we get a divorce, we can lose our health coverage if it’s through our spouse’s policy from work. We can also lose dependent coverage if our husband dies, or if he becomes eligible for Medicare. Some of us, however, aren’t even eligible for dependent coverage in a homophobic system that does not recognize our relationships.

Women are the majority of the low-wage health care aides who often don’t have health insurance coverage ourselves. We strain our backs lifting patients, and then have no coverage for the treatment we need.

We take everybody to the doctor – our kids, our spouses, our elderly parents, even our neighbors, when they need help. We sit for hours in those dismal waiting rooms with plastic chairs. We dig deep in our pocketbooks for co-pays. When somebody is sick, we’ve often the ones who stay home to provide care, using up our sick time.

If Democrats honestly think they can win over the Republicans in Congress, let alone their voting base, then they need to have their heads examined. Try focusing on your own base. You’ve got the majority in both chambers, and you have a Democrat in the White House. If you don’t have the political capital to pass an inclusive health care reform package now, then you’ll never have the political capital. Women’s health shouldn’t be the scapegoat when the real division amongst the Democrats is about how the package will be funded. So grow a spine and stop pandering to people who are never going to vote for you.

Contact your representatives today and tell them that you support women’s health care. And if they still don’t get the message, then tell them that you support their wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunties, and grandmas – you know, the women that they actually know. The personal is political, after all. Maybe then they’ll get the message.