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Uninsured Women
HOST ON CAMERA INTRODUCTION
More than 43 million Americans do not have health insurance. Of those, 12 million of the uninsured are women of childbearing age. It's no wonder that the financial bottom line in many homes is written in red ink. Recent studies show that one in seven families are struggling with debt due to medical bills.
HOST V/O
Tiffanie Tagner of Davie, Florida has to figure out how to balance the checkbook and pay for baby number three without the benefit of health insurance. Her husband's company can't afford to offer employee health coverage.
Tiffanie Tagner, Uninsured
You just have to grin and bear it and put it on credit cards and that's about all you can do.
HOST V/O
The stress and worry about medicals bills doesn't help Tiffanie or the thousands of pregnant women like her. They are married and earn income that puts them in the middle class. However paying for health care insurance would break the bank, giving them a negative balance every month.
Tiffanie Tagner, Uninsured
It gives me, just this knot in the pit of my stomach. Its just awful to think that I actually have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars to do what. You know what is our right is to have a family we want to have three kids there is nothing wrong with that.
HOST V/O
The Broward County, Florida Healthy Start Coalition helps families like Tiffanie's deal with the difficulties of being uninsured. Barbara Lesh works to find the help and services uninsured families need. She says the high cost of insurance is affecting families in increasingly higher income brackets.
Barbara Lesh, Broward Healthy Start Coalition
Insurance has gone up so much that a lot of those middle class people can't afford insurance.
Our middle class people fall in between. They don't qualify for Medicaid but they can't afford the other.
HOST V/O
A recent study found that women between the ages of 50 to 64, are nearly twice as likely to have problems accessing healthcare than men of the same age range.
Barbara believes the work of identifying uninsured women has been made somewhat easier. Thanks to a state mandate, Florida doctors are required to give expectant mothers a questionnaire. It is used to determine pregnancy risks and being uninsured is high on that list.
Barbara Lesh, Broward Healthy Start Coalition
In each county it is sent to the risk screening office that's run by the county health department. They then look at scores as well as did the physician refer for healthy start.
HOST V/O
Healthy Start is an example of how one state is handling the stress uninsured women face during pregnancy.
On the national level the debate gets more complicated. Any bill coming from Congress has to balance the needs of each state but also work as a regulation nationwide.
Ron Pollack, Executive Director Families USA
We've got a hodgepodge a crazy quilt pattern of coverage.
HOST V/O
Ron Pollack is executive director of Families USA. This non-profit group works to create a plan for an affordable health care system.
Ron Pollack, Executive Director Families USA
What we need is to create a national floor standard under which nobody can fall irrespective of what state they are in, irrespective of their family status. That's the direction public policy needs to take and my hope is that as this issue increases in urgency we will move in that direction.
HOST V/O
Pollack says the cost of health care now affects middle class as well as working class families. That, says Pollack, means the Capitol Hill healthcare politics will change in the near future.
Ron Pollack, Executive Director Families USA
It's critically important to start reforming America's health care system. Because with each passing year we are seeing more and more people become uninsured. Last year we had the largest increase in the number of uninsured in a decade. And it is likely to continue to increase because health care costs are rising.
HOST V/O
Karen Ignagni is President of an industry trade organization called, America's Health Insurance Plan, which represents the industry in Washington D.C. Ignagni says health insurers realize there is a market of clients that should be covered.
Karen Ignagni, President America's Health Plans
So I think it's more about the health care urgency and that's the reason we should act. Yes there are economic consequences but individuals without health insurance can't be productive workers, they can't take care of their families and it has tremendous implications psychologically, economically, and sociologically and we've got to deal with that straight up.
HOST V/O
For Tiffanie Tagner, her monthly budget comes down to paying for health insurance or paying for food and utilities.
HOST V/O
With two small children and a third on the way, Tiffanie and her husband decided for now they will go without health insurance.
Tiffanie Tagner, Uninsured
Oh we'd be in the red every month. By hundreds and hundreds of dollars. We were on a PPO and we did pay for individual health insurance for about a year and a half and we just simply could not afford it. It came down to do you want to have groceries and transportation or do you want to be able to have health insurance so health insurance lost.
HOST V/O
Because the number of uninsured families from working class and middle class incomes has grown steadily over the past few years, Barbara Lesh and her team believe families will continue to need help until major changes are made.
Barbara Lesh, Broward Healthy Start Coalition
They don't say anything to anybody they don't want to rock the boat. They're embarrassed all kinds of things. But that just increases they're stress level. And increased stress can play into pre-term labor, poor birth outcomes, low birth weight. So you don't want the mom stressed out. Because all it can do is hinder the baby.
HOST V/O
With help from Broward Healthy Start Coalition Tiffanie is looking at insurance policies that will cover her children. But Tiffanie says she and her husband will remain uninsured until she can go back to work.
Tiffanie Tagner, Uninsured
If there's a job that I can be happy with, that's just a simple job where I can go and the hours are such that my husband could watch the kids then that would be great I would go back soon you know six months or so.
If there's a move that I can make to start a new career then I would wait. I would wait until the baby is older, you know, maybe two or three years old. Because that would involve a daycare and childcare and so forth. So I haven't quite decided what route we'll be going.
HOST ON CAMERA TAG
Medical costs have risen at twice the rate of general inflation making it difficult for most paychecks to keep up with health insurance premiums. The most recent numbers show the cost of prescription drugs, hospital stays and doctors care is rising at more than 7-percent.
HOST V/O
Approximately 15 million women in the United States are uninsured. Nearly one-third of African-American women 18-64 are uninsured, as are half of low-income Hispanic women. Women who are pregnant and without insurance can check with their state public health, maternal health or women's health offices to see if they qualify for pre-natal care and newborn programs.
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