Raising women's voices: Health care for women, health care for all

Women have much at stake in the health care reform debates. The current U.S. health care system fails to provide access to needed care for many women and for the family members whose care they often coordinate. The barriers involve coverage eligibility and limitations, cost, health care disparities, family dynamics and the willingness of health care institutions and individual health professionals to provide requested services. They affect both insured and uninsured women. Addressing the barriers that women face will build support for progressive health care reform solutions. In addition, addressing women's health care problems, such as preventing insurers from treating pregnancy as a pre-existing condition, will be essential to enlisting women in the movement for health care reform. The Raising Women's Voices for the Health Care We Need initiative is doing this by engaging women from diverse communities in identifying their health care needs; prioritizing efforts to engage women from communities that are marginalized in health policy discussions and that face special obstacles, such as discrimination and language or cultural barriers; using a policy framework for quality, affordable health care for all that advances women's health needs to evaluate health reform proposals; creating partnerships between women's health advocates and consumer leaders for health care reform to strengthen understanding of each other's perspectives and create a powerful alliance for change; and educating health policy makers about women's perspectives on health care reform, with a focus on the need to include comprehensive women's health care in plans for expanding health coverage.