Women are Being Considered as an Burden to Health Care Insurance Companies

Women Inequality with Insurance

An image from Huff Post showing that a scale of women and men being equal.

        According to Law Info, "Women were charged higher insurance premiums than men for the same coverage, simply because of their gender. Insurance companies claimed women were more costly to insure. But women tend to use healthcare differently." As a result, women are suffering in many different aspects of healthcare. Since they have additional needs such as birth control or more health care visits during pregnancy, they are treated as a burden by the insurance companies. Even though employers supply health benefits to the employees with many positive advantages, not all citizens are provided the same quality, preventing equal care from being shared.

       Health care insurance is insurance that an individual pays to get partial or total coverage of any medical expenses. No law ensures all medical benefits are equal to all employees, and part-time employees are not provided benefits. Since the Second World War, this has been a problem when companies started to pay employers less but replace the missing pay with medical benefits. 

     Since Universal Health Care has not been instituted in the United States, many women struggle to find ways of paying for necessary bills and needs while trying to keep up with their medical health. Especially if a job is recently lost, maintaining doctor's visits and medications is not the main priority of several women, such as Susan Finley. She recently lost her job at Walmart. According to The Guardian, "After losing her job in May 2016, Finley also lost her health insurance coverage and struggled to find a new job. Three months later, Finley was found dead in her apartment after avoiding going to see a doctor for flu-like symptoms." The ability to juggle all the necessities of life is becoming a struggle for many other women as inflation, and other factors increase daily.

      One way many other developed countries avoid this problem is the installation of universal healthcare. Regardless of their abilities to pay for health care, every citizen is provided with help with the essentials needed for their health. This method of health care has been proved successful in almost all countries it is provided in, but still is only a theoretical idea in the United States. 

     Constitution US states, "The United States is the only developed country that does not provide health care to its citizens." Even though government programs have paid for health insurance in many households in the country, such as Obamacare, a large percentage of the United States still is not insured under these programs. Many strict guidelines and restrictions prevent the lower classes from signing up because they do not meet the requirements. 

     Not only will Universal Health Care benefit women in daily health care problems, but also with other issues faced in sexual health. Allowing women to get the necessary materials to practice safe medical treatments such as contraceptives or abortions would decrease the number of women dying because of unsafe pregnancies. According to Guttmacher Institute, "Every dollar spent on contraceptive services beyond the current level would save $3 in the cost of maternal, newborn and abortion care because the use of contraceptives reduces the number of unintended pregnancies." In the past, women without health care have not had the same opportunity to get these treatments because they do not have insurance in low poverty areas or face an increase in insurance premiums compared to men.

      In the future, if Universal Healthcare were installed in the United States, it would allow current uninsured citizens to get the necessary treatments needed for medical issues. Even the insured citizens who do not have enough income to pay the left-over bill after medical insurance would not have to be concerned about how they will find the money to pay. Overall, the positive benefits outweigh the negatives because it allows everyone to be included in medical treatments. There is some disagreement with every new idea, especially in the government, which is the main reason Universal Healthcare is still being negotiated.  

      A common issue that many people will face with Universal HealthCare is the ability to find open appointments. Since more individuals will be able to make the appointments, there will be fewer openings and longer waitlists. Even since the Coronavirus pandemic, there has been a nurse and physician shortage, which would also increase wait times. Many people would see this as a negative impact on their health. Still, since the sick patients are getting treated for the problems, they will have fewer hospital visits, so appointments will not be as complicated to schedule as expected. Overall, there will be a healthier population across the country, including the future generations. If the current expecting mothers are provided the necessary healthcare, the babies are expected to come out healthy with fewer complications.

            Universal Healthcare will positively benefit most of the population of the United States, especially women, if passed. Not only will the uninsured citizens be able to get the healthcare they deserve, but so will the middle class, who is struggling to pay the costs even after the unfair benefits provided by their jobs. The current health care situation does not provide any positive benefits to women, as they are treated unequally compared to men. Men do not have as many different medical needs, but they still pay less than women. Health care should be a right, not a privilege, to citizens because it is a basic survival need. The inclusion of Universal Healthcare will equally benefit the citizens, no matter their social or economic status.