For Immediate Release

June 23, 2017

Trumpcare Trades Women’s Lives for Tax Cuts to the Super Rich and Business Interests

 

For Immediate Release: June 23, 2017
Contact: Megan Connor / meganconnor@feministmajority.org / 703 973 6469


Feminist Majority today joined with Feminist Majority, National Organization for Women, In Our Own Voice, and the National Women’s Law Center in opposition to Trumpcare, which will have a catastrophic effect on many women’s lives. Watch the press conference here. 


Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released a draft of the Senate’s healthcare bill that shamelessly targets women: pregnant women trying to access maternal and per-natal healthcare; the women who make up nearly 70% of all adult Medicaid enrollees; young women trying to access reproductive healthcare; and elderly women who make up over two-thirds of nursing home patients.

Just like the House version, the Senate bill is not about providing healthcare services but rather about taking them away from millions of people—mostly women. It takes nearly a trillion dollars away from Medicaid to give massive tax cuts to the super rich and benefits to insurance providers and drug companies. This bill disgracefully takes from Medicaid nearly a trillion dollars and would deny life-saving services to the 74 million people who rely on Medicaid for care.

Medicaid pays for nearly half of all births in the United States. The average cost of childbirth, with private insurance is $17,000. Without insurance, the cost of childbirth can reach anywhere from $32,000 for a vaginal delivery without complications to $52,000 for a cesarean or a birth with complications, according to the National Women’s Law Center. With these massive Medicaid cuts, money will be limited for birth, prenatal and postnatal care and access to ob-gyns will be limited.

For women with private insurance plans, maternity care may not be covered. On average, paying for maternity care out-of-pocket would cost a woman aged 15-44 more than her annual insurance premiums or her rent and would eat up roughly half of her income. If maternity coverage is not guaranteed, women would be forced to purchase a maternity rider at a cost of more than $1,000 per month—meaning that many women would no longer be able to afford this coverage. Under Trumpcare, a pregnancy could mean economic devastation and bankruptcy.

The price of nursing homes today, no matter the size of the community, is beyond the reach of not only low-income people but people in the middle class. Currently, Medicaid pays for two-thirds of all patients in nursing homes, 70% of whom are women. With these massive Medicaid cuts, women will be forced out of nursing homes and will die prematurely. For those lucky enough to have children, the cost of their care will be shifted onto their adult children. Daughters of elderly parents spend as much on their parents’ care as spouses, sons, in-laws, and grandchildren, and other relatives combined. Under both the House and Senate Trumpcare plans, daughters will be more likely to either drop out of the workforce, cut back on their hours, or have their pay limited becase of additional caregiving demands. Women are already spending 35% of their budget on their parents’ care; this figure will skyrocket under this disastrous Trumpcare plan.

Reproductive healthcare is also under attack. The Senate version of Trumpcare instates a temporary ban on Planned Parenthood funding, putting access to affordable care out of reach for millions of women who rely on the healthcare provider for cancer screenings, STI and pregnancy tests, contraceptive care and other critical reproductive health and family planning services. Moreover, it enacts changes to Medicaid and existing mandates in the Affordable Care Act that would rob women of birth control coverage and further restrict abortion access. It also puts the essential benefits mandate—which gave women access to necessary preventive care and screenings, as well as maternity care—in the hands of states, allowing women’s access to health care to be limited state-by-state at the whim of local lawmakers.

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