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| Where is the gender equality in health benefits? |
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October 18, 2009 Hello Sisters! It has been an outstanding week in the life of this organization! We have three committed funders for the Weekend for Women Conference hosted by DiabetesSisters and TCOYD and we are waiting to hear from many more. The emails from women interested in attending are starting to roll in as well as requests from women who want to speak at the Conference and women who hant to volunteer to serve on Conference committees! The kind of overwhelming response we have received--a full seven months in advance of the event--tells me that this Conference is long overdue! We have a strong core group of planning committee members (listed at the bottom of the Weekend for Women Conference page: www.diabetessisters.org/weekend-for-women-conference) who are dedicated to putting on a Conference that is educational and enjoyable for all attendees. I am excited to move forward and see all of their fabulous ideas come to fruition over the next seven months. Don’t worry---- I will update you all along the way! Another story I wanted to call to your attention is related to the gender discrimination that goes on in the health insurance industry, but is not really talked about very much. With all of the talk now about health reform, this story is even more important for us as women with diabetes. I will never forget my mother telling me over and over after my diabetes diagnosis, “Now Brandy, this (diagnosis) means that it is going to be very important for you to find a job that has good insurance coverage. You can’t afford to live with this disease without health insurance.” For women with diabetes who have ever been in job-search mode, it is not uncommon to read a job ad and think it is the perfect job for your skill set. Then, you have to go the extra mile to determine if insurance benefits are offered with the job and if so, how well do they cover diabetes (medications, supplies, specialist visits, etc.). What is worse is to interview for a job at a small company whose insurance premiums would obviously increase by hiring a “woman with diabetes” (despite the fact that your A1C has been under 7% for as long as you can recall) and to know in your heart that you DID NOT get the job because the company couldn’t ‘afford’ to bring you on due to the dramatic insurance premium increase. For any woman with diabetes who has ever felt this, my heart goes out to you! No, it is NOT fair, it is NOT right. In fact, it is despicable and reprehensible for women to be treated as second-class citizens. It is even more reprehensible to read the stories of women who are penalized by insurance companies for bearing the children that are the product of the union between a MAN and a WOMAN. In the following story from ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Health/women-battle-health-insurance-industry-demand-equal-benefits/Story?id=8838361&page=1, you will hear from women who paid higher premiums simply for giving birth to a child. One insurance company even blatantly states (and they can state this because there is no law against health insurance discrimination) that, women who have had C-sections must undergo sterilization in order to meet the company’s qualifications for coverage!!! WHAT! Are you kidding me???? I encourage you to read this article so that you can gain more insight into why this is such an important issue for us as women, but even more so, for us as women with diabetes. This story made news because this past week (on October 15th), because the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee had a hearing on Capitol Hill that highlighted the gap in health care costs and coverage between men and women in America. Let’s do our best to stay on top of this issue and bring it to light whenever others try to push it under the rug. After all, the chance that our daughter(s) may have to live with a chronic illness like diabetes, asthma, or even cancer is not that far of a stretch! But, how disappointing it would be if the health insurance industry was the same in 20 years as it is today for women…and women with chronic illness.
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