Women's Health Should Not Be 'Special Interest,' Opinion Piece Says

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Also Included In: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance;  Abortion;  Sexual Health / STDs
Article Date: 23 Oct 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) "obviously doesn't understand" that health insurance "should be designed to spread the risk among us all, not to exclude certain classes of people so that policies cost less," Dave Zweifel, editor emeritus of the Madison Capital Times, writes in an opinion piece. In the opinion piece, Zweifel reports on comments by Alta Charo -- a University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor and a senior adviser to the FDA commissioner -- during a speech last week at a Planned Parenthood luncheon. Charo discussed a recent verbal exchange between Kyl and Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) regarding maternity coverage in health care reform that "explains a lot about what's been wrong with the health care debate in Washington these past several months," according to Zweifel. During the exchange, Kyl said he does not need maternity care, so "requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive." Stabenow then said, "I think your mom probably did."

In her speech, Charo argued that health care "ought to be built around women" and "not treat them as a special interest," Zweifel writes. "If you don't want to cover women's maternity care, then don't ask us to cover your prostate cancer treatments or, better yet, don't ask us to cover the costs of your Viagra prescription," Charo said. Zweifel adds that Charo is "alarmed at how women are treated as 'special interests' in the health care debate when not only do they outnumber men in the health care system, but by age 85 women outnumber men two to one."

According to Zweifel, the "reason [women] are considered a special interest is because health care becomes a debate on moralism and politics rather than on science -- something well known to Planned Parenthood, which strives to get young people informed about their sexual health." Charo said, "We've got to stop treating health care as a Sunday school scolding." Zweifel writes that the "ideologues use misinformation to get their way," and "we keep pumping millions of taxpayer dollars into abstinence-only sex education in the health care debate."

Charo also noted in her speech that antiabortion-rights lawmakers have proposed amendments that would "ban any health insurer from covering an abortion if the firm gets any federal subsidy," Zweifel writes. Such a ban "would cover all insurance companies because their low-income policyholders will be subsidized with federal funds," he adds, concluding, "Guess what is also in the Senate Finance Committee's health reform bill (S 1796): $50 million more for abstinence-only sex education" (Zweifel, Madison Capital Times, 10/21).

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