A Critical Link: The Environment and Women's Health Conference

A Critical Link: The Environment and Women's Health Conference
In recent years there has been an increased awareness of the connections between environmental contaminants, fertility, and health -- and a growing body of evidence supporting these concerns that link reduced fertility to pregnancy loss, adverse birth outcomes, reproductive tract abnormalities, learning disabilities in children, and various cancers to environmental contaminants. It is becoming increasingly clear to those of us who work for women's health that we must begin to turn our attention to the environmental toxicants that are affecting the ability of couples to become pregnant, have healthy pregnancies, and give birth to healthy babies.

At Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, we feel a responsibility as a health care organization to help our patients and communities make the link between human health and the products we put in our bodies, and in our homes and schools.

On September 10, 2009, PPNNE is presenting A Critical Link: The Environment and Women’s Health, in Burlington, VT. This ground-breaking conference will feature a keynote address by ecologist, author, and cancer survivor Sandra Steingraber. Steingraber and other environmental health experts, will participate in a panel discussion moderated by Dave Rapaport, Seventh Generation’s senior director of corporate consciousness, and Mia Davis, national grassroots coordinator for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards will kick off the conference and share the Planned Parenthood perspective on providing greener, healthier choices to patients. For more information go to http://www.good-chemistry.org/

Healthcare, Guaranteed

Over the last decade we have filled our libraries with treatises written on reforming health care. Yet, our health care system remains largely unchanged. Many of these volumes are overly complex or duplicative, quoting the same figures about the shocking percentage of GDP spent on healthcare (close to 17%) and the poor results achieved (well behind almost all industrialized countries). In this sea of undifferentiated policy work, Ezekiel Emanuel’s book Healthcare, Guaranteed: A Simple, Secure Solution for America stands out for its clarity of approach. If we were President for a day (or maybe even Ezekiel’s brother, who is Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel), we would mandate that Healthcare, Guaranteed be required reading for all members of Congress. Check out the great review written by the newest member of the Women's Bioethics Project advisory board, Margaret Lane.

Five Misconceptions About Health

Here's a brief summary of an article Shannon Brownlee and Ezekiel Emanuel wrote for the Washington Post (reprinted in the Minneapolis Star Tribune):

1. America has the best health care in the world.


Let's bury this one once and for all. The United States is No. 1 in only one sense: the amount we shell out for health care. We have the most expensive system in the world per capita, but we lag behind many developed countries on virtually every health statistic you can name.


2. Somebody else is paying for your health insurance.


Nope. Even when your employer offers coverage, he isn't reaching into his own pocket to cover you and your fellow employees; he's reaching into your pocket, paying you lower wages than he would if he didn't have to pay for your health insurance.


3. We would save a lot if we could cut the administrative waste of private insurance.


The idea that we could wring billions of dollars in savings this way is seductive, but it wouldn't really accomplish that much. For one thing, some administrative costs are not only necessary but beneficial. Tracking the rate of heart attacks from drugs such as Avandia, for instance, is key to ensuring safe pharmaceuticals.


4. Health-care reform is going to cost a bundle.


Only if you think that covering the uninsured is our only priority. Yes, making health care available to all citizens is the right thing to do. But it isn't the only thing to do. We also have to fix the spectacularly wasteful and expensive way doctors and hospitals deliver care.


5. Americans aren't ready for a major overhaul of the health-care system.


A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that only 7 percent of Americans rate our health-care system excellent. Nearly 40 percent consider it poor. A whopping 70 percent believe it needs major changes, if not a complete overhaul.

I strongly suggest everyone go and read the full article. It's not terribly long, and it offers some pretty eye-opening information. For example, did you realize that the average family of four spends $29,000 a year for health care via taxes, lower wages and out-of-pocket medical expenses? While I knew it was taken out of wages, taxes, etc, I had no idea it was that high.

A lot of these things are part of the broader discussion I've seen in comments on this and other health blogs, so they're worth considering as we go into what will hopefully be a new era of health care in America.
-Kelly Hills

NYT: Women pay more for same health insurance

From the NYT:

Women Buying Health Policies Pay a Penalty

It has been found that women could be charged as much as 31 percent more than men when buying the same health care plan. With more and more deregulation of health care, more individuals have to shop around for plans offered by private insurance companies, who are free to set up their own standards for pricing. Justifications for charging women more include childbearing-related issues and higher frequency of going in for regular checkups.

“Women often fare worse than men in the individual insurance market,” said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee.

Insurers say they have a sound reason for charging different premiums: Women ages 19 to 55 tend to cost more than men because they typically use more health care, especially in the childbearing years.

But women still pay more than men for insurance that does not cover maternity care. In the individual market, maternity coverage may be offered as an optional benefit, or rider, for a hefty additional premium.

Crystal D. Kilpatrick, a healthy 33-year-old real estate agent in Austin, Tex., said: “I’ve delayed having a baby because my insurance policy does not cover maternity care. If I have a baby, I’ll have to pay at least $8,000 out of pocket.”

In general, insurers say, they charge women more than men of the same age because claims experience shows that women use more health care services. They are more likely to visit doctors, to get regular checkups, to take prescription medications and to have certain chronic illnesses.

Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, an advocacy group that has examined hundreds of individual policies, said: “The wide variation in premiums could not possibly be justified by actuarial principles. We should not tolerate women having to pay more for health insurance, just as we do not tolerate the practice of using race as a factor in setting rates.”

This is akin to employers who will deny a woman a promotion or a critical job position because they perceive a potential for her to go on maternity leave or to leave the job completely. In addition to being discriminatory, this practice also does not reflect the real impacts of differential use of medical services. Other than for maternity issues, I predict that men tend to have more need for acute treatment because they tend to not be as regular about periodic screenings and checkups as women, and that would be more expensive or at least a wash in the long run.

Once again, a focus purely on profits is getting in the way of fairly providing services to human beings.

Top 10 Hot Careers for 2012

I'm often asked by my students "what kind of job can I get with a master's degree in bioethics?" -- the short answer is that one needs to look at the master's degree as a supplemental degree -- that is, it is beneficial in terms of analysis, problem-solving, and critical thinking in your basic field. Last month, Daily Galaxy published a Future 'Top 10' Hot Careers in 2012, and all ten arguably have aspects that could benefit from an bioethics (that is the broadest spectrum definition of bioethics -- from food ethics to neuroethics to healthcare ethics to computer ethics and beyond) perspective:

1) Organic food Industry

2) Computational Biology

3) Parallel Programming

4) Data Technology

5) Simulation Engineering

6) Boomer Caregiving

7) Genetic Counseling

8) Brain Analysts

9) Space Tourism

10) Roboticists

Some wag wrote in a cheerful comment to the original article "I'd also add 'AI wrangler' (for when the Singularity happens)" -- but that's more likely in 2025, at according to Ray Kurzweil and the experts at TechCast.

Full article can be accessed here.