    
Juelz
Newbie Poster
Username: Juelz
Post Number: 8
Registered: 08-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 07, 2006 - 03:42 pm: | 
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It appears that with time our people would become more socially responsible, but everytime that Blacks take a step forward there are still too many that can't catch up. Perhaps after reading some of this you will find it disheartening as well or maybe you wont feel anything at all. Since this is supposed to be a forum about issues such as that I welcome anyone to carry it further.
Women and Health Care Issues and Responses
Pay inequity between women and men:
A higher percentage of women have low pay, non-union part-time employment that generates a much lower income than do their male counterparts. As a result, women are twice as likely as men to be underinsured.
Women earn only 71 cents for each dollar a man earns. For women of color the problem is more severe.
The chances of a single mother bringing in the comparable income to a married couple is extremely small.
Women represent two-thirds of all Medicaid recipients. Welfare reform poses an additional threat to this population by cutting Medicaid benefits in a two-year time period for recipients. With employment opportunities limited, more families of women and their children may face the possibility of not having health coverage.
Reductions in the eligibility income standard for welfare has also been a factor in the increase of the number of families without health coverage. The reduction from 55% to 47% of the poverty line precludes more families from being eligible for Medicaid benefits.
Diversity
Minority women face lower levels of education, higher levels of unemployment and poverty, and the lack of private or public health insurance coverage.
Among poor black families, 78.3 percent were maintained by women with no husband present.
Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in the United States. Poverty and lack of health insurance are the greatest impediments to health care for Hispanics.
American Indians fall 31.6% below the poverty level, an 18.5% difference over all other U.S. races.
In 1990, 13.4% of American Indian women age 16 and older were unemployed, compared with 6.2 percent for the U.S. females of all races.
Lesbians experience discrimination and stigmatization on the basis of gender and sexual orientation. Homophobic attitudes and behaviors by providers play an important role in access. When lesbians feel unsafe or unwelcome in health care settings they may not seek out medical attention as quickly or readily as do heterosexuals.
Legal restrictions against homosexual marriages limits lesbian’s access to spousal insurance benefits.
The paucity of research conducted on lesbians and women of color is also an area of concern.
HIV/AIDS*
After strong and collective advocacy efforts by consumers and advocates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded the AIDS definition in 1993 to include some female specific symptoms.
Globally in 1993 there were approximately 3 million women living with HIV/AIDS. Currently there are an estimated 14 million women living with HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS 1998).
The number of women living with AIDS in the United States continues to increase. In 1993 there were 24,323 reported AIDS cases among women. This number grew to 115,907 in 1998.
Women continue to be understudied, underreported and underdiagnosed.
Women currently make up 32% of new HIV cases in the United States yet they make up only 17% of federally funded research studies.
The majority of federally funded studies involving women are focused on HIV transmission and pregnancy. However most women living with HIV/AIDS in the United States are not pregnant.
While the percentage of women in the United States living with AIDS in a specific racial/ethnic category has remained fairly constant, women within minority racial/ethnic groups are continuously over-represented in proportion to their percentage of the population.
For more of this stagerring information go to the following link; http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:fwaUwVGcOh8J:www.socialworkers.org/diversit y/women/womenhealth.asp+blacks+with+no+health+care,+2006&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd= 7
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