The Wonk Room

Women Lose Under McCain’s Health Care Plan

A new analysis of the effects of Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) health plan on women’s access to health care finds that “tens of millions of women would be at risk of losing their current insurance coverage even though they use health services more frequently than men, suffer chronic-illness more often than men, and require maternity care and other reproductive health services.” The report estimates that:

- 30 million women with chronic illnesses would be at risk of losing their employer-sponsored health insurance

- Millions of women would be steered into the unregulated national insurance market, where they would experience coverage denials and pre-existing condition exclusions

- Deregulation of insurance companies would erode state protections, including guarantees for critical preventive services

Moreover, “by permitting plans to cherry-pick their state of residence as well as enabling plans to sell policies without regard to state insurance rules through so-called ‘association health plans,’” McCain’s plan would encourage “insurers to eliminate coverage of basic health services,” the report notes. Thus, women could lose state protections that require insurance companies to cover contraception, cervical cancer screenings, breast reconstruction, maternity care, and annual breast, ovarian, and cervical cancer screening.

McCain’s plan reduces costs by providing less coverage. And while healthy people (or the not-yet sick) could benefit from McCain’s proposal, Americans who actually need care will find themselves without coverage.

Read the full report here.

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