Action Alert



Legislative Action Alert:
Ohio ranked 31st
among all states for women's healthcare

Ohio's score was unsatisfactory in Making the Grade on Women's Health: A Report Card by the National Women's Law Center and Oregon Health & Science University.  This report finds that necessary health care is absent for too many women and better access to health insurance is needed.  Necessary health care is absent for too many women in Ohio.

  • More than 1 in 5 women lack health insurance.

  •  30 percent of Hispanic women and 20 percent of Black women are uninsured. Almost 50 percent are uninsured among American Indian/Alaskan Native women.

  • More than 12 percent of women do not receive prenatal care in their first trimester.

  • About 8 out of 100,000 women die during childbirth; ranking Ohio closer to the top third of all states.

Given the high numbers of uninsured women, Ohio should enact policies to help women gain access to health coverage and care. While some progress has been made to ensure that low-income women receive care, further action is needed.

  •  Ohio should raise Medicaid eligibility for families. Working parents earning above $14,940 (90% of Federal Poverty Level (FPL) for a family of three) and pregnant women earning more than $24,135 (150% of FPL) are not eligible for Medicaid coverage.

  • Ohio should ensure presumptive eligibility for pregnant women. Pregnant women should be covered by Medicaid while their applications are being processed.

  • Ohio should ensure family planning coverage for low-income women. The state has not secured a waiver to expand Medicaid coverage for family planning services.

  • Ohio should pass health reform that would expand coverage for all.

The 2007 Report Card compares the nation and individual states to goals set by the U.S.  Department of Health and Human Services' Healthy People 2010 agenda. The health status of women across the country needs significant improvement.


Report courtesy of the National Women's Law Center; for more information, complete report findings are online at http://hrc.nwlc.org.  Also recommended:  No Where To Turn which explains in detail the healthcare issues impacting women.