This week's E-Alert Includes:

• Why Single Payer is a Women's Issue
• How you can stay informed
• What you can do to get involved
• How you can JOIN THE ACTION & DONATE

According to information provided by Our Bodies Ourselves, Women's eNews, and World Health Organization, women will benefit the most from a single-payer system

Here are the facts:
Single-Payer health care plans offer the best chance to reduce payment incentives. Payment incentives lead to overuse and misuse of drugs and medical procedures, which translates into an enormous problem for women of all ages. A single-payer plan would improve Women's health more than any other system under consideration.
The single-payer model creates a system that will best control costs, allowing existing resources to be distributed most fairly. Also the single-payer model is best positioned to take on the enormous challenge of reducing, almost eliminating financial incentives that have led to both over-treatment and under-treatment.
Let's take Maternity care for example. The US spends far more per capita than any other industrialized nation and yet do worse on many key indicators of maternal and newborn health. Despite the World Health Organization's recommendation of optimal C-section rates between 5% and 15%, nearly one-third of all women in the US deliver their babies by cesarean section. One reason is because obstetricians and hospitals are paid more for a surgical delivery than for a vaginal birth. Such incentives not only raise costs, but inevitably produce worse health outcomes as more healthy women experience the risks of surgery without any benefits. There is something seriously wrong with this picture.

Basic advantages for women on a single-payer system:

• Coverage is independent from marriage. Because women's only option for health care coverage is through their spouse, women face additional risks for becoming uninsured as a result of divorce or a spouse's loss of employment.
  
• Coverage is independent from employment. Women are more likely to be self-employed, to work part-time, and to move in and out of employment outside the home. If a plan with a "public insurance option" is passed by Congress and ultimately fail, women will be hit harder.
• Single-payer system would encourage better care for chronic illnesses. Women use chronic care services far more than men. Because caring for people with chronic disease now accounts for more than 75% of all health care spending, women will benefit substantially from more efficient and effective ways to deal with severe chronic illnesses.
• Single-payer system would address the cost issues that send women into debt and bankruptcy.
• Single-payer would reduce the number of medical malpractice lawsuits.
• Single-payer system would enhance the working environment for health care
• Single-payer system would eliminate the need for Medicaid. Women who are unemployed and have functional limitations that exclude them from the private health insurance market would receive health and medical care on a par with women in general.
  
  The truth of the matter is that:
• Women make most health care decisions for themselves and their families
• Women are not well-served by employement-based insurance. In California, only 35% of women are covered through employers and many women (75%) who are not in the job market are caregivers. Worst of all, women still make about $.76 to the $1.00 of men's salaries, making women unable to buy insurance or needed care.
• Women have greater needs for medical service because they have more medical problems. Those medical problems include: arthritis, auto-immunity, mental health (more depression and anxiety), reproductive health, and 38% of women have a chronic condition
• Maternity and baby expenses are often associated with Women's health
• Women live an average 4 years longer than their spouses

Do you know about President Obama's Three Principals for Health Care Reform?
President Obama wants you to support this effort.stay tuned to all of the fast moves taking place in Congress

Support the women working hard to get single-payer or some plan that includes Women's health. For example, Marcia Angell and Senator Barbara Boxer. Also, read what Jennifer Norsigian and Jennifer Porter have to say about why the single-payer option is the best option. And if you must, get upset! like Senator Bernie Sanders

Join WIN in our efforts to make change. Gender inequality exists even within the US Health care system.
Contact EQUAL for questions on bills, hour-to-hour updates on what is going in Washington, D.C., and any questions that you feel you need to know to understand how this effects you personally. You can also join their list serve. Just scroll down to the middle of their web page and follow the directions
Sign a petition.
Email or write to your senators, especially the Blue Dogs.
And we save the best for last - Donate! Joining WIN and/or CAWA is the best way to keep this cause moving.
The time is now to make a difference!

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