A recent Commonwealth Fund study found that women feel the pinch of rising health care costs more than men. According to the study, half of working-age women report problems getting care due to cost, compared to 39 percent of men.
The reasons boil down to the usual suspects. Women generally earn less than men at jobs that, in turn, offer flimsier group health insurance. So, they suffer higher out-of-pocket costs and, on average, use the health care system more frequently.
But of those who do have coverage, we were surprised at how wide the gender gap is: A whopping 69 percent of underinsured women have problems accessing care because of costs, compared to 49 percent of underinsured men.
And it’s safe to assume that the picture is even more dire now since the findings of the study, conducted in 2007, don’t reflect the severe economic downturn of the last year.
Part of the problem has been a 119% increase in employer-sponsored health insurance premiums over the last nine years. And it’s not getting any better: A separate Commonwealth Fund study released today predicts that health insurance premiums will increase another 94% over the next eleven years, if costs continue unchecked.
“The stakes are high in the health reform debate,” Schoen and her co-authors said. “Without a change in course, projections of premium trends indicate that middle- as well as lower-income families may well be priced out of the insurance market or forced to sacrifice future wage increases to hold onto shrinking health benefits.”
Still, the real problem isn’t health insurance itself, but the health care costs that drive up premiums for everyone. Any reform that doesn’t attack increasing health care costs head on, won’t do the job.