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Plenary 4: Health Care
(CART Transcripts)Captioning provided by Com Access.
The reporter today is Tammy Jaffe.SPEAKER: I have one announcement to make. There have been many of you who have been requesting contact information, not only for the presenters, which you have in your program book, but also for registrants and participants who have not been officially speaking but who have been making their voice proudly heard throughout this weekend. Now the foundation -- the NOW foundation has a privacy issue in that we do not give out contact information without the permission of an individual who -- the information is being given out. So what we are going to do is the information when you registered included e-mails. You can send e-mails under a BCC to everyone, asking permission to give the information, e-mails out, once we received that out, we will do a general list with e-mails so everyone can see them and you can start communicating with each other and so we'll have names and e-mail addresses whatever you want. I hope that helps. Now, on to our show.
JOANNA.
MS. BUSH: Good afternoon. We hope you have a good lunch. We are going to be talking about health care this afternoon first. We will be having a show from a group called the -- from the Imagination Stage, and then we'll have three speakers. Claudia Center, will be talking about health care issues, then we'll be hearing from JAN ERICSON, who will be talking about breast implants and our final speaker for our lunchtime will be Laura YELLIN. Is our performing group ready? Okay.
Imagination Stage is proud to have offered theater and educational programs for persons with disabilities since 1989. Wings is Imagination Stage's semi professional company comprised of persons with disabilities in its fourth season. Wings will now perform excerpts from last season's original musical called love is a disability. Please welcome -- (performance begins)
MS. BUSCH: Okay. Wow what a wonderful performance. We now would like to begin with our speakers. Our first speaker, Ms. Claudia Center will be talking about health care issues.
Claudia.
MS. CENTER: Hi. People here? I'm talking going to talk a little bit -- there we go. I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the chronic and episode nontraditional disabilities that many of us live with and many women live with. These are often called health conditions. There are also disabilities and we conditions and women who live with these conditions are properly part of the disability rights community, justice coa O'Connor's opinion not with standing. Not only do millions of women live with these conditions in fact many of these conditions are experienced predominantly by women so these are really women issues. These include conditions like depression, anxiety disorders including posttra mawt tic stress disorder caused by violence and sexual assault, chronic pain and migraine, fibromyalgia, all of the auto immune disorder, cancer, such as breast cancer and carpel tunnel syndrome and other kind of stress injuries.
That is not the only reason that these are about disability issues and women's issues. I think that these type of conditions and disabilities -- and I myself live with depression and mood swings, like millions of American women but it really demonstrates the value of our coalition work, such as what this conference is trying to advance and the fundamental ways these issues intertwine.
You think about what is it that exacerbates those types of conditions I just listed. Well, the stress of racism, sexism, homophobia, domestic violence, tock since that are disposal portion Nately dumped in poor neighborhoods, disability phobia, mad phobia,bullying all of these sorts of stressors and ISMs are things that exacerbate and even cause these conditions.
And what helps us live with these conditions? What help or enables many of us to stay well. Healthy work environments flexible workplaces and basically just spaces that are difference friendly, spaces where all of our voices can be heard where all of our differences are send and welcomed.
In that environment people are better -- more able to lead better and healthy lives, more able to live and be as well as possible.
And part of that process and part of that making those changes in society includes the work of the women's movement, includes the work of the lesbian gay bisexual transgender movement and I would say especially the transgender movement is really promoting difference friendly workspaces and other parts of society. So I recommend that we coalition with that movement.
The disability movement, of course. So I really echo what bri stow said yesterday about these movement being critically important to all of us and definitely to me personally those movements have changed my life.
So basically these disability specific solution that many of us lawyers have been telling people have about, these disability laws they are not going to be the only answer to our issues and our needs. That is only one piece of the puzzle.
I'm just going to tell you a few stories from my practice area that kind of demonstrate the intersecting of all of our issues and the importance of coalition work.
One man I represent was an artists that lived with graves disease, worked with the newspaper as a staff artist. And graves disease can often cause psychiatric issues like depression. They are very intertwined.
So he was having an episode of graves disease and he was expressing symptoms of depression and told his supervisor that he needed a leave of absence because of his condition. And she started to harass him because of his disability and also in a way that showed sexism and homophobia. She said yoalt, "You should suck it up and be a man and get to work and be strong and everyone's has problems." that did not help his graves disease, big surprise. In fact it exas bailted those conditions and made it work.
It can show how it is not just disability harassment, but all types of harassment that can make people less well and their conditions worse.
Another woman we represented is a woman named Tina who is a survivor of domestic violence and she developed posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of being stalked by her husband. She went to her employer and said, "I need to be transferred to a more secure environment because being out in public without anyone else being by myself is triggering my PSTD because of my experience with domestic violence and my anxiety disorder."
Again the employer did not understand her experiences and did not understand her needs as a woman living with posttra malt tic stress disorder. So they couldn't see either of those realities and again just treated it as a personal problem. "you have got to get your personal life in order."
My own experience I have had a comparable experience. When I was in law school in my second summer I worked for sort of a fancy corporate law firm and had a really rigid kind of hierarchal male structure. So I went and I am smart mouthed and tell jokes and try to be my own personality and I kept getting these looks and this sort of, "Why are you speaking up? And you are not supposed to talk." very top-down no one would laugh at my jokes and it was really -- I am sure some of them were bad, but.
I was trying to be myself and I kept geted clamped down and that was as a person with depression, that can be a very depressing experience to feel your voice is being put down and you can't be yourself.
The depression was being worse in large part that smer because of Howrey jid that culture was.
I was sneaking out trying to meet with psychiatrist and I wasn't sleeping and I was coming in. I was getting my work done but I was suf firring and having a real hard time. I remember going to lunch with a male colleague, I think he was a senior associate or junior partner and trying to tell him how a hard time I was having this summer and I started weeping.
And we were at a lunch place and he just looked totally appalled and he looked at me and said, "Don't ever let anyone from the firm see you cry."
And I thought, "Oh, God if I didn't feel bad already I really feel terrible now."
So just the way an environment sort of shuts down your voice and shuts down your ability to express a range of emotions can just make it one condition, in my case depression, just so much worse. By the end of the summer I was just really having a hard time because of that culture that was very mad foe Bic, disability foe Bic and very sexist.
My story is very happy and the next year was in D.C. was with the whims law and public policy program. Ended up with a woman's organization where people cried all is time. No big deal. That was fine.
Now I'm in San Fran sy scoa, a nonprofit organization where I feel is difference friendly. And it has made a world of difference to me in terms of wellness. I think it is often true for women who live with these kind of conditions. And of course we also need universal health care. >>>: I'm going to take the podium because I have all the papers that could be flying down.
My name is jan Ericson, government relations director for the national organization for women thank you.
For the last few months we have been involved in a very intensive project to try to get the issue of safety in silicone breast implants properly addressed by the government.
It was an issue of some urgency because a manufacturer of silicone breast implants had put an application in with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin selling these implants again after about 11 years of their being held in the general market.
I don't know if many of you remember the controversy of 90/91/92, but that was when a lot of women were coming forward with many complaints of illnesses and deceases that they felt were related to their breast implants. Both saline and silicone. Well, the FDA finally after several years moved to take silicone breast implants off the market, leaving those primarily to mast steck toe my patients and to others who agreed to be in a clinical study. I am giving you a short history here.
We knew there were still problems with the implants that had not been properly studied.
So the national organization for women put together a scientific symposium in made and brought in more than a dozen scientists, clinicians and government officials to talk about the stated research on silicone breast implements.
And when they were all done, sort of a consensus document summarizing all those statements were put together and circulated again among the presenters and they all signed off on its accuracy.
And the summary documents said, "We still don't have enough data to say what the implants are saying."
We took that document not only to the press and to the hill in July, but we also sent it to the Food and Drug Administration officials and we testified this last Wednesday.
Well, Claudia talked about crying. I guess I felt like crying on Wednesday night that I heard that despite mounds and mounds of data from many studies showing there is severe risks associated with silicone breast implants. The advisory panel listening to this data, as well as to the story of more than 80 women who came to Washington to testify, decided, oh, it will be okay if we just put them back on the market and we will have a lot of follow-up with these women and still continue to study it.
So this is going to be the largest ongoing experiment on American women in history.
While it looks like we have lost, at this point there may be a small window of opportunity to appeal to FDA commissioner who can actually ignore what the panel said and make an independent decision in consultations with other officials.
As well as look at the FDA own data and the data from the American Cancer Institute and independent research sirs and make a different decision. We are appealing to him and to the Hill to try to get the FDA to, you know, conversation front this issue and not subject women in this country, as well as around the word, not just women in America because these companies sell these implants all over the world, to not allow them back on the market.
There is still saline implants, which women can utilize, although those do have some risks as well.
This whole story is like a made for TV movie, honestly. Every time I hear a new fact or a new story about what has gone on I just am staggered by the stupidity and the counter producttivity and the down right, I guess, George W. Bush over utilized this world, but in some ways I think it is really kind of evil.
I want to give you a "for instance" of what I'm talking about.
When the FDA panel on Wednesday was about to vote against approving these for general use, the manufacturer, MN corporation in Santa Barbara, got panicked and pulled out plan B. And they promised they would require all women who are getting these implants to have MRIs every few years, to participate in a very closely monitored follow-up study, which we know they won't do because they didn't do it over the last 10 years during the clinical studies that were going on. In fact, their own data shows in many of their studies they lost a majority of the women that they were supposed to follow up on and they had nothing to tell what happened to these women.
Of course you can guess probably a lot of these women were ill.
Anyway, getting back to their proposal.
The FDA has no authority to enforce this follow-up activity. That is one huge problem. The other huge problem is -- and this is the real clinker here. We are presupposing, but we think this is very likely true, if these women do not get MRIs that cost, what, 700 dollars each time you have them. I don't know but I know they are costly. Every few years and do not adhere to the other requirements of the follow-up they would have waived their opportunity to sue the company in case they get ill. So this is like an insurance plan for the company to get out of liability. Now I call that really evil.
We are still researching the details of their proposals we will have some facts straight soon. We intend to make a lot of noise about this because while the FDA was looking at possibility possibly approving the general release of silicone breast im plans at the same time another agency, the center for Medicaid/Medicare services, are suing implant manufacturer for tens of millions for health care services provided to women with breast implants. This just gives you a little sense of the total craziness of this whole experience.
I may be skipping over some vital information about what is wrong with these implants but I'm doing that because you are already eating lunch.
We have some pictures that we show at a demonstration that we participated in in front of the department of Health and Human Services over at the capital a few weeks ago. They were truly, truly discussion stressing pictures of women that were badly disfigured by breast implant, surgery and explant surgery, that is removing the breast implants.
You can see some of those pictures, however, on several web sites. You don't get the gravity of this until you see what has happened to some of these women. I have to tell you that this story of breast implants in the United States is really a micro coz mg of what is wrong in health care and for profit medicine in the United States. It is a story of for profit companies really control the science and they have much more influence with government officials than they should have. And the result is government officials put far too much weight on studies that the companies in which they have a vested interest, of course, submit to government agencies for approval, for not only devices for breast im plants but drugs. Very few independent studies are done. We found that the studies were done on very small group of women, women who had only worn implants from a few months to a few years. There are very, very few studies done of women with breast cancers. And that was a major concern in the 80s and 90s that silicone may be contributing to an inis a dense of breast cancer. No causal link has been found as yet, but we have so few studies.
What we do know now, thanks to brave researchers of the National Cancer Institute, the Food and Drug Administration and universities and research centers, that there is a statistically high evidence of fibromyalgia, among the women who have both saline and silicone breast im plants.
There is a doublings and tripling rates of brain and lung cancer among women who have silicone breast im plamentss.
And finally the there are three may be even four studies from the United States and other countries, the most recent one being Sweden showing that the risk of suicide is much much higher for women who wear silicone or saline breast implants.
That whole matter of depression of women with implants who develop illnesses and can't get proper pled call treatment and have run out of money and have lost their husbands and partners, cannot hold down a job, has not been addressed at all.
We do know that suicide is indeed a factor and a very, very alarming one. In the meantime we see the numbers of women getting im planls going up exponentially. The number almost doubled between 1997 and the year 2002. The total now runs about 300,000 a year. That is about 240, approximately 240,000 who seek im plants for augmentation purposes for making the breast larger and the remainder is MASECTOMY patients getting reconstruction of their breast.
There is is a very intensive marketing effort to young women to get breast implants. Because we just observed our "annual lover you're body day." this is something important to us to get the message out to women, in their teens and in the 20s about the risk. In addition to emphasizing our message that it is very important to love a natural and healthy body. We believe it is also, equally important message for women to know the rich risks. And I think I am preaching to the choir, know risk of any surgical procedure and we find many women not asking appropriate questions. And we find a lot of others who are not being told the truth.
One of my inturns a few summers ago, Michelle, called a local plastic surgeon and described the size of her breast and inquired what the surgeon thought might work for her. And the surgeon over the phone said, "Oh, it sounds like you really need breast implants." And so we decide to follow up on that. And Michelle made an appointment for a consult.
She went with a volunteer, an older woman on our staff who knew what some of the data said and was ready to ask some pointed questions. They went to the surgeon office and the surgeon was just so positive of the benefits of breast im planls, down played all the risks. Appeared not to understand what some of the studies were saying and was more than ready to schedule Michelle for surgery the next day.
This past week my current intern, Sonya Christmas, called three or four breast implants cosmetic surgeons in the D.C. area, just to find out what they were charging.
And learned that the price of a saline breast implant is $5,000. Some say I don't have that much money. How can I may be stretch this out over time?
And the doctors office referred her to a company that helps finance breast implants. So it has been made very easy for young women to get breast implants. And I am sure you all heard the story of girls, teenagers, for their 16th birthday or graduation getting a gift of breast implants.
Now, we know that breast implants fail over time. All breast implants will rupture, will leak.
The majority of them tend to rupture within 7 to 12 years. A young woman getting implants look at a lifetime of possibly 10 or 12 implant-explant procedures at a total cost of over $100,000, which is huge.
Now, if the Med Corporation proposal is okay with the FDA and the pressure is put on by targeted marketing to get silicone implants because they assert they look or feel better than saline, we can see those numbers increase by 10 or more percent a year. That is what the companies say right now, is how this market is growing. It is a huge, multi hundred million dollar market for the manufacturers as well as cosmetic surgeons. So it is a huge force here that is very hard to combat. I think it is our role as women's health advocates to spread the word. There is is a lot of information now on the web and I want to recommend for you a simple way to search. There is also a lot of bad information too, I have to tell you.
My friend Diane Zuckerman, Dr. Zuckerman who spoke yesterday and who is with the National Center for policy research for women and families is an expert on breast im plans.
Her site is dedicated to accurate information, WWW.breastimplantinfo. After our talk today. If you want more information, I have my cards and I can take down your name and contact information. I want to talk more about NOW's activity. In addition to testifying at the hearing this week we have done a great deal of working in coalition. Claudia Center talked about how important it is to work in coalition. I want to mention one more reason why it is terribly important.
Most of the women health advocacy organizations in Washington are not totally free to speak what they believe is the truth based on scientific fact. There are only three women's organizations that don't take money from companies or the industry where there is is a vested interest.
And that is Diana's organization, national center for policy and research on women and families, Cindy Pearson, her organization, the national women's health networks and a much smaller one called Jacob's ladzder. That is the short name. Sorry I don't remember the whole name.
The rest of the organization, and many of the the breast cancer advocacy organization take money from various companies who really want to be able to sell their drugs and their devices and they mute what they have to say and they refuse to join a coalition with you. They simply don't -- with this issue, they simply don't want to deal with it, which I think is a huge tragedy.
So it is all the more important for you folks to put pressure on the organizations that you come into contact with that you think are not really dealing with the facts, that are not really looking at with an honest eye at the science and not advocating truly for women.
I think the research for women's health issues is really retarded because of the fact that we don't have enough strong voices out there. And we desperately need lots of good research on women's health issues on a wide range of health problems. I also want to underscore what Claudia said, I'm so delighted she mentioned this at the end end of her trawk.
We really need to work for universal health care coverage in this country. It is really the only way
(Chorus of Applause)
MS. ERICKSON: It is the only way we are going to solve our problems. And unfortunately none of the major presidential candidate tons desm crat tic ticket are talking about that. And in congress, of course, they are talking over prescription drug benefit for senior that I think will fail ultimately because it is under funded and it will -- it leaves out a lot of seniors and it will end up having companies dump health care coverage for people over 65 who are still working for companies and have coverage through them.
So I hope that even though it is probably something that is in the distant future, it is something we can agree on and continue to work on.
An example of how eimportant it would be comes from my issue here. If you have a breast implant, many insurers, if not most, limit coverage and/or will deny you coverage, for anything.
If you end up getting sick with breast implants you may find yourself losing health care coverage completely for the rest of your life or at least until you get do 65 and can qualify for Medicare or become so bored that you -- poor that you get Medicaid. I think that is a huge problem that needs more exposure and certainly those teenagers, the sweet 16 young women getting breast implants have no concept of what this may mean for their futures. We know we can't simply do without health insurance coverage, too costly to pay out of pocket.
In addition to those women who do become very ill and apply for SSI, supplemental insurance, it takes several years to get qualified. I have heard of stories where women have actually died before they have become eligible for receive that. And obviously that process needs to be addressed as well. I can go on about some of the problem, some of the other problems that we have encountered, but let me just say because this, im sure what I have been telling you is very depressing and it has certainly has been as I have worked with it.
It is hard to find things to cheer or feel good about. Let me say there are some he rows and she-ROs here. One is is a lady who is a very beautiful, determined woman who had silicone breast implants. Had horrendous problems. She had five reoperations and skin decay around her anyone NIPLES and had a transLAP which is the use of abdominal skin to receipt a breast.
Complained to her member of congress and talked to Sid wolf, the Nadar organization public citizen help project, about this and brought it to the attention of the country and has worked on it for 15 years. And I'm sure that -- and in fact, there was a movie made about sy bill's experience that was made for television a number of years ago and starring marry O'Donnell.
SYBIL has galvanize all the women who have had problems with implants and they have lobbied and organized and very instrumental in getting the FDA to take silicone im plants off the market. They have shown up at all the hearings and written letters and met with the member of congress and have harassed the FDA -- harassment is sometimes a good thing -- and have done a marvelous job in getting much more public attention to this very serious problem which desefers still more attention and correct action.
So SYBIL is is a hero as is Mary MCDONA, an actress with a beautiful red headed child in the television series Walton. She has organized actors and try to educate them with several help information about what could be going wrong with these implants and identifying symptoms.
This is a very taboo subject in Los Angeles and other entertainment circles, if it is known by insurers, you may not get insurance and you may not be hired to work in the industry. Mary has been very brave and brought some actresses last week to be in the demonstration and speak to the panel. So those women and others, including many patient, Diane Griffith at Springfield who wore her implants for 29 years but became so with them she nearly died.
Diana is a very interesting person who anger helps propel me who now because of the after affects of the im plabilityss she removed weighs less than 100 pounds and has a very compromised health situation. To sum it all up and I would be happy to provide information for anyone who cares and I will stay afterwards on the stage, we would lover to have your help on this issue. If you know anyone who has a teenage dawfer who may be thinking about this we have brochures to supply.
In addition to the WWW.breastinfo site that I mentioned there is also a site, command trust network which is SYBIL's site that provides good, accurate, scientific information and I encourage you to look at those as well.
Thank you for allowing me to talk about this issue and good luck with the rest of your conference.
>>>: Thank you, jan. I want to thank NOW and the leadership they showed on breast implants. I was privileged to ask to testify and read the story of a woman who suffered disability from breast implants from silicone jell im planls and was out in front of the FDA panel this week and saw just how strong the leadership that NOW is showing is having an affect on voices being heard.
I also want to -- appreciate Claudia for your remarks. I actually started my life as an advocate when activists in the mental health movement. So I resonate strongly with your words today.
I'm Laurie young. I'm privileged to serve as the executive director of OWL, the voice of mid wife and older women we focus solely on issues unique to women as we age. So OWL, therefore in the advocacy community kind of bridges abled organizations and women's organization to ensure that the voice of mid life and older women is heard loudly and frequently.
I would like to give you a preview of my rashs this afternoon to sort of set the stage for the points I would like to make. The first is mid life and older women are often challenged economically. Many will face economic hardship and poverty. The failure to take charge of our health care system has led to the inability to access affordable health care.
As my colleagues has set the stage for their rash remarks, I would say it is now to have a serious debate about our health care system and make the changes we know are long overdue
(Chorus of Applause)
>>>: I'm here today to speak to you about unique challenges of mid life and older women in getting affordable health care. But there is a few things we need to acknowledge about mid life and older women's lives before we can talk about access to health care. They still work in jobs that don't have health care coverage. Only 60 percent of women age 50 to 64 -- this is a very important area because there is often where they are early retirement where they don't qualify for health care. Only 60 percent of those women and 30 percent of women over the age of 65 receive employer-based health insurance. Women are twice as likely as men to work in technical, sales and administrative support positions which generally generate low wage.
Older women live with the consequences of the ever present wage gap. With women over the age of 50 earning 2/3 of what men over 50 earn.
Care giving is a key factor. And the typical informal care giver, whether caring for a parent, partner, spouse, children or even grand children, is a married woman in her mid 40s to 50. She is employed full-time and spends another 20 to your hours a week in informal, unpaid care giving. Many care give verse are part of the sandwich generation, caring for children at home in addition to old interest family women.
Some women now, we like to say or don't like to say, are now part of a club sangd which generation, which three or four layers of care giving responsibility.
Women often curtail their professional opportunities during this care giving time and this can impair financial security in their old age. When we talk about health care you will see why fnltd security is important.
Care giving can preclude not only the course of their career but preclude them from working at all. Women spend an average of 12 years out of the wortion wortion force for care giving.
This financial impact is especially troubling. Time out of the workforce, diminishes women's earning power. As a result they are twice as likely as men to face poverty in retirement, twice as likely. Indeed women account for more than 70 percent of the elderly poor. The major health care system for older women is Medicare. In fact, the typical Medicare recipient is a woman.
She has out lived her spouse, or divorced or never been mared. And because she is alone she is more likely than a man to be living in poverty.
She suffers from a long term chronic illness, arthritis, os stereo por rowsis, die betest and chances are she suffers more than one.
She spends an anch of -- she may be living in her own home toe day, her poor health and lack of health in managing her daily affairs will probably require her to seek long term care. Gaps exist in coverage that disadvantage older women in light of their circumstance.
They are not pro peshd under high out of pocket expenses. Because older women are likely to live in poverty, they are more likely to spend a greater portion of their income on health care.
The average older woman spends 20 percent of her income on out of pocket health care service,,including prescription drugs and supplement tall experience. The older and poorer the woman, the herer her out of pocket cost will be. Poor women spend almost half of their income, almost half on health care cost.
Your know and we have been hearing discussion today and for a long time now about the prescription drug benefit for Medicare that is under consideration in congress.
We know right now there is no coverage under Medicare for prescription drugs. Except for individuals enrolled in Medicare managed care, Medicare does not cover preprescription drugs unless in a hospital or other health care institution.
Almost #- out 10 women on Medicare use prescription drugs regularly. 80 percent of women on Medicare use prescription drugs regularly and most must pay for these medications out of pocket.
There is insufficient it support for long term health care. For women the glaring gap for Medicare is the absence of long term care coverage. With more chronic and disabling conditions, longer life spans and the greater likelihood of being alone, women are more likely than men to have long term care needs and use the services.
I could suggest to you mainly women in nursing home, it is mainly women taking care of women in nursing home. What people don't talk about is how underpaid, under trained, under insured and put in danger in terms of physical and mental care health the care givers are in the health care industry pfer women account for almost 70 percent of women who receive home health services. Almost 3/4 of residence in nursing homes are women.
Supplemental insurance is not always adequate, many older women rely on additional supplements for Medicare. But they do not cover many types prescription drug.
If you listened to what jan said, an issue brought up in the conference committee in the health and senate on prescription drug benefit is Section 6 31 which would actually allow employers to discriminate against younger retirees and older retie rirs in terms of the benefits they provide as well as the real possibility that employers could drop their benefits for older workers and retirees.
In recent years an increasing number of older women in Medicare have been enrolled in Medicare managed care plans. While some research suggests some of the managed care plans have features that are particularly important for older women, research also shows that chronologically ill women in many managed care plans often have poor health outcomes.
The plans can encourage decisions that result in the provision of fewer or less expensive service.
In addition many women are forced to change primary care physicians many times more than once. A study of Medicare beneficiaries by the U.S. Department of Health and human services found substantial dissatisfaction among individuals enrolled in managed care plans. For the last few years many managed care plans dropped managed care patients, changed benefits or raised co-payments for pharmaceutical benefits and office services. This is not helpful for women to feel secure about their health plans and does not make them feel on recommendations to fix the health care system by relying on the private market.
Clearly the older challenge that older women faces the increasing costs. Double digit inflationary cost of health care coverage and lack of comprehensive, universal and defined benefit within Medicare. I said nearly 80 percent of women on Medicare use prescription drugs regularly.
Because women have half the retirement income of men, drug cost consume much larger share than much limited income chron illnesses treated with prescription drugs increases our rely Lance on life sustaining medications and presents a huge affordability issue for women.
OWL has spoken about guidelines for prescription drug benefit. I was going the take a few minutes and speak to you about the prescription drug benefit that is in congress right now. And I'm just not going to go into a lot of it because I just will tell you that it is bad. And I could use lots of language to describe to you why it is bad but trust me it is bad. And it goes agains the four basic tenants that OWL held out must be part of a Medicare prescription drug benefit and those are it must be universal, it is not, it must be comprehensive, it is not, you continue to pay premiums every month even though you may have hit the famous donut hole when there is a gap in coverage, it must be affordable, it is not. It will cost many people many mo more dollars than they currently are spending. Finally, depending on how the conference report is issued, we believe in OWL it must be Medicare. The house does not call for Medicare fall back; the senate bill does and it is unclear how it will come out in conference.
As you will see what is being talked act now does not meet any criteria that we think will be in the right prescription drug benefit for older women.
The other thing about it is the it relies on the private market. Women know they are relying on the private market to provide this benefit will not work in our favor. Frankly so the huge number of HMO who dropped out of Medicare choice. Since 1988, half that signed up for Medicare mission choice have dropped out of the program since 1988. And yet the reliance of the private market to aaddress the health care Christ sition has returned double digit costs in health insurance.
Small businesses have experienced a 30 percent increase in premiums and we all know what happens when that happens and that is the cost gets passed on to the workers. More and more employers are making hard choices regarding the decisions related to health care benefits. More and more cost containment strategies are based upon passing through these cost increase, raising preem yums and co-pace for treatments and pull pull tears for cost.
I think everyone has had the experience where it is Column A, column B or Column C and depending on where your column falls can you have co-payment from 5 dollars to 40 dollars for your prescription drug. Relying on the private market has led not the care management. And bureaucratic decisions and appeal processions leaves sick individual flses the LERCH.
For most of you in audience these statistics are part of your daily reality and the reality of someone you know. You work hard caring for yourself or your family of. You know health care in the country are a mess. You have seen friends and family negotiate a system that only provides minimal support to those who need it most.
Now we come to the discussion of reform. As Jan and Claudia both said, what we need now is an open and honest discussion of how we as a nation will respond to the needs of 43.6 million Americans without health insurance. There is an -- in that group there is an increasing population of mid life and aging adults. For more than 10 years people inside the beltd way, that is how they reference those of us who live down here and get very insular from time to time. People inside the Beltway have feared any discussion of universal health care, in particular the single parent style.
10 years ago the American public was frightened with images of lack of control over health care, care and managed by some bureaucratic government system that would deny people access and coverage of necessary treatments.
In the face of an alarmed public the government left the issues of spiralling health care costs to managed health care systems in the private sector.
It sure be noted about every fear projected 10 years ago has now come to fruition. We now have to wait weeks or months to get appointments for physicals. Physicians in large group practices where even if you have high option insurance you are likely to face the same delays and hurdles as those in HMOs. There has been the denied treatment, delayed treatment and confusion for most American Americans who are in need of medical help. Most of us have adjusted to these change but we are not happy about it. The greatest insult of all is that our health care system is in as grave of danger today as it was 10 years ago with skyrocketing cost.
We can continue to step over it, around it and deny the severity of the crisis or we can address a system overhaul that puts every option on the table. Relying on the private market has simply failed the American people, and in particular mid life and older women we must be bold and we must have the courage to face those that says the government is oacial reliable in running certain bureaucratic systems but not the be trusted with others.
It is time to urge your family, friends and colleagues to put pressure on policymakers to enter into a discussion of meaningful health care in this country. Only this time instead of thinking about the insurance companies, congress must focus on the needs of the American people.
So now is the time to talk about single payer universal health care. We know we can provide health care coverage to issue in America.
There is a group called Medicare for all.
There are people that are arguing that this system, which is the health care system right now that most Americans are pleased about, as opposed to being unhappy about the other system, that we can by simply switching the administrative cost of private industry to the 2 percent or less of administrative cost of managing Medicare, that we will be, for the same amount of money, be able to provide coverage to every American. And it is time for the United States to join the rest of the western world in providing adequate, accessible and affordable health care to its citizens (Chorus of Applause)
MS. ERICKSON: So in closing, what all this has been about is that older women are often poor, the health care system fails to meet their needs and we need to talk seriously about the lack of universal health care as the major threat to all American, especially mid life and older women thank you.
(Chorus of Applause)
>>>: Oh, I can't walk away without a brief commercial from my sponsor. For any of you who might have any interest or want information about the older women's league, I have brochures up here and I will be happy to talk with you. Thank you.
(Chorus of Applause)
>>>: We are going to take a 15-minute break so the hotel can clear off the dishes and reconvene for in the room for the last plenary, which is violence against women, and symposium remarks.
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