Chair of the Joint Economic Committee, Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), and her colleagues released a report yesterday stating that more than 1.4 million women are adversely affected by the recession because they are losing their health insurance through their own or their spouse’s job loss. In addition, there is an increase in uninsured children due to an increase in unemployment among single mothers. The report estimates that 64 million women do not have adequate health insurance.
The report finds women are disproportionately harmed by a lack of health insurance because women use more of their savings to cover the cost of medical visits than men. Younger women are less likely to have job-based coverage owing to their inflated unemployment rate of 15.7 percent.
Representative Maloney said in a press release that the report offers solutions for health care reform because currently there is a “burden on America’s women, for whom the status quo health care system is a failure.”