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The BWH Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology took the national spotlight last month, as Paula A. Johnson, MD, MPH, briefed Congressional staffers from the House and the Senate on key women’s health challenges, with a particular focus on the Affordable Care Act.
The briefings, entitled “Women and Health Reform: How National Health Care Reform Can Enhance Coverage, Affordability and Access for Women,” focused on recommendations that stem from a detailed report the Connors Center produced in 2010 with the Massachusetts Health Policy Forum. The report shows how women have benefited under Massachusetts health care reform and identifies remaining gaps in coverage, affordability and access.
“As key consumers, providers and coordinators of health care, women have been uniquely affected by health care reform in Massachusetts,” said Johnson, executive director of the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology. “National health care reform implementation gives the Brigham an opportunity to share lessons learned from Massachusetts health care reform, and through our rich clinical and research expertise, to advocate for women’s health issues and inform policy at the national level. What we have learned is that we must have people at every level of government taking in to consideration the implications of health policy decisions on women. If we don’t, the challenges that women face from these decisions won’t be addressed.”
The Connors Center report detailed issues that persist for women including continuity of coverage, affordability, access to primary care, long-term care, health equity and assessing impacts and outcomes. For example,
organizations assessing health care reform do not necessarily record sex-specific data, or do not stratify and report key measures by sex and by sex/race.
Johnson informed staffers about why women get stuck in the “churn” of getting dropped from a health insurance plan and experiencing a lapse of time before they can enroll in another. Women, who generally have lower incomes and are more likely to work part-time than men, are more susceptible to changes in employment status and are less likely to be primary policy holders of a plan. This turnover not only results in gaps in health care coverage for women, but also adds up to millions of dollars in unnecessary administrative costs.
“The briefings also gave us an opportunity to dispel some myths about Massachusetts. For example, many believe that health reform has led to escalations in employer health insurance premiums. However, when we consider employer health insurance premiums as a share of household income, before and after reform, Massachusetts is among the least expensive states,” Johnson said.
The briefings were sponsored by Massachusetts Rep. Michael Capuano and Sen. John Kerry.
Johnson was joined in Washington, D.C., by Therese Fitzgerald, PhD, MSW, director of the Women’s Health Policy and Advocacy Program at the Connors Center and Laura Cohen, the Connors Center’s senior health policy analyst. Fitzgerald, who began this fall at BWH (see related story above), is working to build collaborations with clinicians and researchers at the hospital who are focusing on women’s health in order to strengthen policy at the local, state and national levels.
“We want to partner with faculty at BWH who are interested in bringing their work in women’s health to a larger audience with the potential to inform policy,” said Fitzgerald.