In a New York Times article titled “Health Care Reform Is a Woman’s Issue”, Nancy Folbre brings gender into the healthcare reform debate. She argues, backed by First Lady Michelle Obama’s recent speech regarding gender and healthcare, that healthcare reform is “a women’s issue”. Folbre points out that pregnancy and family planning make it so that, on average, women require more healthcare than men. To back up her claim, she draws on an effective example; the typical woman who chooses to have 2 kids will spend about 5 years either trying to get pregnant, being pregnant or recovering from pregnancy and 30 additional years preventing any unwanted pregnancies (Folbre, 2009). Folbre also points out that women eat the cost of healthcare for their children in single-parent families, which wind up being headed by women more often than not. Folbre also argues that women are often more burdened by healthcare insurance issues than men. She argues that this is because women are more likely to be reliant on their husband’s healthcare for a variety of reasons (for example, women are more likely to hold part-time jobs or be the one who stays home to take care of the children) and are thus in a more vulnerable position if divorce or death of a spouse takes place.
I personally believe that bringing gender into the healthcare debate is pointless. There is however a part of this article that is effective: when Folbre shows that women have just as much at stake as men when it comes to healthcare. Folbre has a point when she argues that women need to take a more active role in the healthcare debate. However, trying to prove that women have more at stake than men will prove to be fruitless. Gender is too broad a category to generalize arguments across and most of Folbre’s arguments lost meaning because of over-generalization. Ultimately, the focus of the healthcare debate should be on specific policies and not on useless comparisons.
To read this article go to: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/health-care-reform-is-a-womens-issue/
Laura,
ReplyDeleteThis post is interesting, but it seems like the author spun a small statement in to something very large. I agree that women pay a lot more for health care in terms of child labor, but this does not make it a woman's issue. Your conclusion is very effective. It makes sense because women and men both have equal stakes in health care. I agree that women have more costs during labor, but this does not make the issue entirely a woman's. Overall, your post was interesting.