The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will improve the health care of nearly 30 million women in the U.S., according to an issue brief published by The Commonwealth Fund.

By the time the law fully takes effect in 2014, up to 15 million uninsured women will be eligible for subsidized coverage, and an additional 14.5 million insured women will see improved coverage and/or reduced premiums.

Low-income women will especially benefit from the law, the issue brief states.

President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act this past March as part of his administration’s effort to enact national health reform.

Implications for Direct-Care Workforce

Perhaps the most significant provision of the act will be an expansion of Medicaid eligibility to cover adults earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (currently about $14,400 for a single adult).

An estimated 8.2 million uninsured women between the ages of 18 and 64 will be eligible for Medicaid when that provision takes effect in January 2014, The Commonwealth Fund report found.

A significant number of these millions of uninsured women are members of the direct-care workforce, which is 90 percent female, PHI research (pdf) suggests.

Approximately one out of four direct-care workers is uninsured, and many of them would be eligible for Medicaid under the new eligibility rules. The median annual income of direct-care workers is just $17,000; personal and home care aides make an average of $12,000 a year.

PHI has compiled a chart (pdf) on other health-reform provisions that will affect the direct-care workforce.

More Helpful Provisions

The Commonwealth Fund’s issue brief details several other provisions that will benefit women.

Beginning September 23, 2010

• Health plans will be required to cover a wide variety of services without requiring cost-sharing. Those services include screenings for breast cancer, and cervical cancer, as well as osteoporosis screenings for women age 65 and older.

Beginning January 1, 2014

• Insurance companies will be required to accept every individual who applies for coverage, and will be forbidden from charging higher premiums based on gender or pre-existing medical conditions.
• Health plans sold through state insurance exchanges will be required to cover maternity and newborn care.

– by Matthew Ozga