Press Release
For Release: August 20, 2001
Contact: Cristin Carr (781) 736-4203
An estimated one million older women will lose health
coverage under proposed Medicare reform, new study reveals
Waltham, MA -- An estimated one million older women will be without vital health care coverage if a proposal to reform Medicare is passed, according to a new study released by the National Center on Women & Aging at Brandeis University’s Heller Graduate School.
The proposed change, which would increase the age of eligibility for Medicare from 65 to 67 years of age, ignores the health care needs of our nation’s vulnerable older women, according to the research.
According to Phyllis Mutschler, the principal investigator of the study and executive director of the National Center on Women & Aging, the hardest hit would be those not yet eligible who would not have access to any other form of health care coverage.
Prior to Medicare eligibility, most women rely on marriage or employment for health care coverage. The study found that among the 900,000 women aged 65 to 67 who entered the Medicare program from 1992 to 1995, over 80 percent were not working (lack employer-provided coverage) and 30 percent were not married (unable to be covered as a spouse). Increasing the age of Medicare eligibility would deny coverage to these women, jeopardizing their access to care.
“Indeed, higher costs of commercial coverage, higher divorce rates, and lower rates of workforce participation point toward more limited access for older women,” says Mutschler. “There are few reasons to anticipate significant changes that would improve their opportunities to access health insurance coverage.”
According to the study, Medicare will become increasingly important to women as traditional family patterns decline, as fewer men and women work after age 65, and as the cost of health care and commercial coverage rapidly escalates.
The study analyzed a nationally representative sample of women between the ages of 55 to 64 years of age. Data taken from the Mature Women Cohort of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience were used to determine the factors influencing health care coverage and the risks associated with raising the age of eligibility.
###
The study was funded by a grant from the Jay and Rose Phillips Foundation. An Executive Summary of the study, titled “If I Can Just Make It To 65... Measuring the Impact on Women of Increasing the Eligibility Age for Medicare,” is available at: http://iasp.brandeis.edu/womenandaging/shelf.html