Research Women's Health Issues!!
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A Good Day To Advocate for Better Healthcare
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Claims denial is in work and so is a piece on the availability of psychiatric beds.
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More People Insured
The number of Americans without health insurance dropped by about a fourth from 2019 to 2023, US health researchers said, as the government tried to bolster coverage during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2023, 25 million Americans of all ages were uninsured, down from 33.2 million in 2019, according to preliminary survey results released Tuesday by the US National Center for Health Statistics. Children without health insurance also declined from 5.1% in 2019 to 3.9% last year. (Bloomberg)
Nonetheless, most industrialized countries (our peers) have an uninsured rate that looks like ZERO.
Contraception and the ACA - It’s Supposed to be FREE
Women are still being charged for contraception even though federal law dictates it should be free. The chair of the Senate health committee wants a government watchdog to investigate why. Under the Affordable Care Act, health plans are required to provide birth control to patients as a preventive service. Repeated probes have found that plans flout the law and patients are asked to pay, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a letter being sent Monday to the Government Accountability Office and shared with The Washington Post.
In his letter to GAO, Sanders cites a recent investigation by the state of Vermont that found three insurers wrongly charged residents more than $1.5 million for contraception. A 2022 investigation by the House Oversight Committee found that health insurers persistently denied their members’ requests for no-cost contraceptives. Some insurers deny coverage for certain brand-name contraceptives, saying they cover generic versions that are therapeutically equivalent. But insurers are required to offer a process for women to access contraceptives that physicians deem medically necessary.
Sixteen percent of privately insured contraceptive users were still paying out of pocket in 2022, according to polling by KFF, a nonpartisan health research organization.
Women and Medical Research
Medical research has shortchanged women for decades. This is particularly true of older women, leaving physicians without critically important information about how to best manage their health.
Late last year, the Biden administration promised to address this problem with a new effort called the White House Initiative on Women’s Health Research. A good first step.
There are a variety of areas where research is needed about women’s health. Here are some of the key areas.
Pharmaceuticals
Most research is done on males and extrapolated to women. It turns out that many medications do not work the same way in women as they do in men,.
Here’s an example: The Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi, approved by the FDA last year after the manufacturer reported a 27% slower rate of cognitive decline in people who took the medication. A supplementary appendix to a Leqembi study published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that sex differences were substantial — a 12% slowdown for women, compared with a 43% slowdown for men — raising questions about the drug’s effectiveness for women.
The FDA should require that study results include sex and age breakdowns of results so that there is sufficient information about what medication works for what patient.
Heart Disease
Women with heart disease, which becomes far more common after menopause and kills more women than any other condition — are given less recommended care than men. This is according to Martha Gulati, director of preventive cardiology and associate director of the Barbra Streisand Women’s Heart Center at Cedars-Sinai, a health system in Los Angeles.
She notes that evaluations for chest pains are often delayed. Blood thinners are also not provided at the same rate. Procedures like aortic valve replacements are also not done as often.
Older women are less likely than their male peers to have obstructive coronary artery disease — blockages in large blood vessels —and more likely to have damage to smaller blood vessels that remains undetected. When they get procedures such as cardiac catheterizations, women have more bleeding and complications.
Answer - More research needed to address how best to treat women with heart disease.
Those are just two areas. There are significant gaps in cancer detection and treatment, cognitive decline and osteoporosis. All require sex based investigations to make sure that women are able to receive the best detection and treatment possible.
I recommend reading up on this gap in medical knowledge - Here is an article published by The Kaiser Family Foundation to start
ACTION
Let’s thank the President and Vice President for getting the ball rolling by funding research into women’s health issues and suggest that the FDA include women and age in their test data and that the focus attention on cancer, heart disease, cognition and osteoporosis, Here is the Kaiser Family News Article link https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/older-women-understudied-health-needs-longevity
if you want to include it. They can be reached here, https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact./.
Or use RESISTBOT to send this message by texting SIGN PBPKCT to 50409.
“I am your constituent and I wanted to thank you for providing extra funding for health issues related to women. Research has focused on males for too long and women are significantly different. I want to recommend to you the following Kaiser Family Foundation article, https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/older-women-understudied-health-needs-longevity. In it they recommend that the FDA start requiring age and sex data so doctors can make informed decisions. Also recommended are better and more aggressive treatment for women with heart disease, they present differently than men and the areas of disease and blockage are different. Also recommended are research into cognition, osteoporosis, and of course, cancer detection and treatment. I know it’s a lot, but more than half of us need doctors to make the best decisions possible and without enough data that won’t be possible. So again, thank you and please push these recommendations through.”
Resources
Find My Elected Officials
Contact State and Federal Representatives - phone and email
Healthcare Advocacy (Us) Website
Our Newsletter resources including reproductive healthcare - Healthcare Advocacy Reading List
Important Healthcare Resources
League of Women Voters Healthcare Reform Toolkit
Organizations to Contact
National Nurses United Medicare4All
Physicians for a National Health Program
One Payer States
Healthcare Now
Reproductive Health
NARAL - Pro Choice America
Charley. chatbot abortion resource - make sure to use a secure incognito browser if you live in a state that has banned abortion
Planned Parenthood
Miscarriage and Abortion Hotline has references about where to procure abortion medications. They also assist women in the process of self managed abortion or miscarriage by phone or text and will respond in an hour. Details and hours of operation at their website.
United State of Women Reproductive health page (bottom of the page) has important resources such as medical support, access to Telehealth, prescriptions by mail, and legal support references.
Practice careful communications - The Digital Defense Fund has a number of tips to keep texts, calls, and internet use private. Here is their site.
If you need financial help with an abortion try abortionfunds.org
Claims Denials and Appeals & What to Do
Appeal a Healthcare Decision
Appeal/Negotiate a Hospital Bill
Disinformation Management
Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency
Save Democracy
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Jessica Cravens
RESISTBOT
Link to the RESISTBOT site to learn more
Link to Chop Wood, Carry Water RESISTBOT write up
Learn About Healthcare Policy
The Kaiser Family Foundation has put together an online course about healthcare policy. It is called Health Policy 101. It is free and here is the link to their course page. I will keep this note here for a few days.
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