"Almost 13 million women aged 15-44, accounting for one in five (20.8 percent) women of reproductive age, were uninsured in 2012, according to a Guttmacher analysis of new U.S. Census Bureau data. Moreover, in that same year, almost four out of every ten (39.1 percent) reproductive-age women living below the poverty line lacked insurance coverage."Those are the words of Susan A. Cohen of the Guttmacher Institute (the organization responsible for the chart above), and they highlight (along with that chart) just how many women in this country have had to go without any kind of health insurance. Fortunately for many of those women, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will help many of those women get health insurance. The poorer women will be covered by the expanded Medicaid, and millions of others will get a federal subsidy to help them purchase insurance (will will be less expensive through a government exchange).
At least that is what is supposed to happen. But the Republicans are doing their best to deny that health insurance to those millions of women. They want to repeal (or defund) Obamacare -- and that action would mean those 13 million women would have to continue to do without health insurance of any kind.
But even if the GOP is unable to repeal or defund Obamacare, they have other plans to keep many women from getting health insurance. In many Republican-controlled states, the GOP is passing laws and regulations that will make it harder to people to learn about and access the health insurance exchanges. And some states, like Texas (where more than 1 out of every 4 women have no health insurance), are refusing to expand Medicaid -- which means many poor women will not get insurance coverage.
The Republicans have claimed they do not have an anti-woman agenda, but activities like this show that claim to be a lie -- as do many other GOP actions, like trying to deny women the right to control over their own bodies, denying them the right to equal pay for equal work, refusing to make the minimum wage a livable wage (which would affect many single mothers), and making it harder for them to vote (especially minority women).
I remain mystified as to why any woman (or any man who loves the women in his life) could vote Republican.
