A new report by the National Women’s Law Center, Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women, focuses on the harsh realities of the individual health insurance market.
Many Americans are unfamiliar with the individual market because they receive health insurance through an employer. However, since nearly 30% of direct-care workers lack health insurance of any kind, and only about half receive it from their employer, direct-care workers often look to the invidual market.
The report highlights the policies and practices of the market that put women, who are 90% of the direct-care workforce, at a disadvantage when trying to secure affordable, quality health insurance on their own.
For more statistics on the health insurance status of the direct-care workforce, see our May 2008 report: Invisible Care Gap: Caregivers Without Coverage (pdf 1.9MB)
Allison Lee
National Campaign Manager
Health Care for Health Care Workers
alee@phinational.org
A new Vermont fact sheet (pdf) from the Health Care for Health Care Workers Campaign shows that one in four direct-care workers in Vermont lacks health insurance. Even more startling, is the fact that 50% of the workers who are uninsured work full-time.
While Vermont has been a national leader in creating health insurance options that are affordable and comprehensive, the HCHCW campaign has found that reaching direct-care workers to inform them about those options is difficult since no centralized list of workers exists. In the last few months, HCHCW has partnered with AARP-Vermont, the Vermont Association of Professional Care Providers, and the Vermont Campaign for Health Security to implement a worker and employer outreach campaign to spread the work about the various health care options that are available.
“From what we know about direct-care worker wages, most of the uninsured workers in Vermont are eligible for one of the state-funded health care programs at little or no cost per month, “said Alex Olins, New England Policy Director for PHI. “The challenge is reaching them. I hope that by combining our efforts we’ll be able to reach significant numbers of workers and tell them about these great programs.”
HCHCW Vermont hopes to work with policy makers to develop solutions for both outreach and tracking of health care enrollment by occupation, an additional problem, in the coming year.
Allison Lee
National Campaign Manager
HCHCW
alee@phinational.org
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