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Category: Health Care
September 15, 2017

2016 Census Data: September

The VPC research team has prepared this update based on the Census Bureau’s September 2017 data release, containing data for calendar year 2016. The final year of the Obama administration was generally filled with good economic news: median household income rose, the number of people in poverty fell, and the uninsured rate decreased. Read the full report below.

May 17, 2017

The Haves and Have Notes of Paid Family Leave

Paid Leave for the United States (PL+US) has a new report that looks at the different paid parental leave offered to corporate vs frontline employees at some of the country’s largest companies – and the impact that inequity has on low-income families.

In the United States today, paid family leave is an elite benefit: 94% of low-income working people have no access to paid family leave. Millions of Americans don’t get even a single day of paid time for caregiving. 1 in 4 new moms in the U.S. is back at work just ten days after childbirth. While public discourse often focuses on income inequality, there is another critical way families experience inequality: the inability to be with their babies and families for the most important moments of their lives.

Read the PL+US report’s findings and their index of the top retailers leading the way — and the major corporate employers that are lagging behind.

March 16, 2017

Trump Budget Cuts Will Cause Widespread Pain

The proposed Trump budget released on March 16 increases spending on defense and homeland security by making big cuts to domestic spending that will disproportionately affect women and the poor — including slashing the budgets for the WIC nutrition assistance program, job training programs for disadvantaged youth and seniors, important medical research at the National Institutes of Health, afterschool programs and aid to low-income and minority college students, and neighborhood investments for low-income communities.

Overall, the trend in Trump’s budget is clear, just like it is in the health care proposal being put forth by Trump and the Republicans: Tax cuts for the wealthy and increases in military spending, “paid for” by cuts to government programs that historically help working- and middle-class Americans — especially unmarried women, people of color, and young people.

March 20 Update: We’ve added a more thorough analysis of the FY2018 cuts to the Department of Education and the Department of Labor, and how these cuts would hurt unmarried women, people of color, and young people in particular.

Downloads

The Trump budget increases spending on defense and homeland security by making big cuts to domestic spending priorities — cuts that will primarily hurt working- and middle-class Americans, especially unmarried women, people of color, and young people.
More details on Trump's FY2018 budget cuts to the Department of Education and Department of Labor, which would disproportionately affect unmarried women, people of color, and millennials.
March 14, 2017

VPC Summary of CBO Report on the American Health Care Act

Despite assurances from the Trump Administration that under the American Health Care Act (the GOP’s replacement for the Affordable Care Act), “we’ll have more individuals covered” and “nobody will be worse off financially,” the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has just released an analysis of that legislation contradicting both claims.

Specifically, CBO’s estimate is that if the AHCA passes, 14 million Americans will lose health insurance in 2018, increasing to 24 million by 2026. Out-of-pocket premium costs, deductibles, and cost-sharing costs will go up for most lower- and middle-income consumers using the exchanges — which will have a disproportionate negative effect on unmarried women, people of color, and young people who have all benefitted from the Affordable Care Act.

Read our complete summary of the CBO analysis below.

Downloads

Read our takeaways from the CBO's analysis of the GOP's American Health Care Act, which could take away health insurance from as many as 24 million Americans by 2026.
March 10, 2017

NPWF: Not Enough Family Friendly Policies

The National Partnership for Women and Families has released a fact sheet on the state of family-friendly policies that affect the economic stability and well-being of women and families — and the news isn’t good. The wage gap, discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, a lack of paid family and medical leave and paid sick days, unpredictable scheduling and hours, and stagnant wages continue to keep women, particularly mothers, from realizing their economic potential.

The fact sheet concludes with several legislative proposals to improve the economic stability of women and families, writing:

Women, their families and our nation urgently need policies to promote fair pay and create modern workplace standards, bolstering their financial security now and promoting economic opportunities in the future.

Read NPWF’s fact sheet, “Not Enough Family Friendly Policies: High Stakes for Women and Families.”

March 8, 2017

VPC Analysis: The American Health Care Act

Since the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”) was enacted in 2010, it has helped millions of Americans gain access to health insurance — and especially benefitted unmarried women, people of color, and millennials. Between 2013 (the beginning of open enrollment) and 2016, the uninsured rate among African-Americans dropped by 9.8 percentage points, adults 19-25 by 11.9 percentage points, and Hispanics by a staggering 15.9 percentage points.

All the while, Republicans have been pledging to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act at their first opportunity — and on Monday, March 6, Republicans in Congress introduced their replacement plan, which they’re calling the American Health Care Act.

Our researchers have analyzed the AHCA and found that it jeopardizes all of the gains realized in the Affordable Care Act:

  • Millions of Americans are likely to lose insurance coverage as the ACA’s Medicaid expansion ends in 2020.
  • Health-care costs will rise significantly, especially for those with low incomes, because the Republican plan cuts health insurance subsidies and eliminates cost-sharing subsidies that help low-income Americans afford health insurance and health care.
  • The AHCA offers $600 billion in tax cuts to the wealthy, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
  • The AHCA could potentially unravel the individual insurance market by producing a spiral of increasing costs, reducing coverage and raising deductibles.

Read our one-page analysis summary below.

Downloads

Read about how Congressional Republicans' proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act would jeopardize all of the gains we've made in health care since 2010.
January 13, 2017

The 2017 Agenda: The Affordable Care Act and the New American Majority

As part of our overall goal to collect and highlight data that reveals the economic and political conditions of unmarried women and the New American Majority (which also includes people of color and millennials), we’ve analyzed how repealing the Affordable Care Act would affect these crucial populations, and collected polling data on what Americans think about the ACA. We’ve also done some preliminary analysis of some of the Republican “replacement” plans, and put together a list of policy considerations for unmarried women in particular in any discussion of repealing and replacing the ACA.

Here are some of the things we found:

  • The Affordable Care Act is helping Americans. It has helped cut the uninsured rate for adults ages 18-64 by 43%, a change that has particularly helped unmarried women. In 2013, 10.1 unmarried women 18-64 were uninsured; by 2015, that number had fallen to 6.8 million.
  • According to a November 2016 poll from Kaiser Health Tracking, most of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act are extremely popular—including allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ plan until age 26 (85% in favor), eliminating many out-of-pocket expenses for preventative services (83%), providing subsidies to low- and moderate-income Americans to help them get insurance coverage (80%), and prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage due to preexisting conditions (69%). Additionally, a January 2017 poll from Quinnipiac (conducted after this report was completed) indicates that only 18% of Americans want to repeal the ACA.
  • According to analysts, the “replacement” plans being proposed would cost more money, cover fewer Americans, or both — and, of course, repealing the ACA without replacing it would take away health coverage from tens of millions of Americans, with a particularly heavy impact on the New American Majority.

Downloads

A brief overview of the findings of our full report on the possible impacts of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act for unmarried women and the New American Majority.
Analysis of how the Affordable Care Act has helped unmarried women and the New American Majority—and the possible impacts of repealing and replacing the ACA.
January 13, 2017

The 2017 Agenda: The Affordable Care Act and the New American Majority

The incoming president and the majority party in Congress have made it a priority to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. “Obamacare”).

As part of our overall goal to collect and highlight data that reveals the economic and political conditions of unmarried women and the New American Majority (which also includes people of color and millennials), we’ve analyzed how repealing the Affordable Care Act would affect these crucial populations, and collected polling data on what Americans think about the ACA. We’ve also done some preliminary analysis of some of the Republican “replacement” plans, and put together a list of policy considerations for unmarried women in particular in any discussion of repealing and replacing the ACA.

Here are some of the things we found:

  • The Affordable Care Act is helping Americans. It has helped cut the uninsured rate for adults ages 18-64 by 43%, a change that has particularly helped unmarried women. In 2013, 10.1 unmarried women 18-64 were uninsured; by 2015, that number had fallen to 6.8 million.
  • According to a November 2016 poll from Kaiser Health Tracking, most of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act are extremely popular—including allowing young adults to remain on their parents’ plan until age 26 (85% in favor), eliminating many out-of-pocket expenses for preventative services (83%), providing subsidies to low- and moderate-income Americans to help them get insurance coverage (80%), and prohibiting insurance companies from denying coverage due to preexisting conditions (69%). Additionally, a January 2017 poll from Quinnipiac (conducted after this report was completed) indicates that only 18% of Americans want to repeal the ACA.
  • According to analysts, the “replacement” plans being proposed would cost more money, cover fewer Americans, or both — and, of course, repealing the ACA without replacing it would take away health coverage from tens of millions of Americans, with a particularly heavy impact on the New American Majority.

Read the full reports here:

2017 ACA Agenda for Unmarried Women: Summary

A brief overview of the findings of our full report on the possible impacts of repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act for unmarried women and the New American Majority.

2017 ACA Agenda for Unmarried Women

Analysis of how the Affordable Care Act has helped unmarried women and the New American Majority—and the possible impacts of repealing and replacing the ACA.

We also think this is a good opportunity to highlight some of the data we put together last year about the economic status of unmarried women and the New American Majority in each state—including statistics on access to health insurance. Find your state’s statistical profile below:

Statistical profiles not available for Delaware, Idaho, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, or West Virginia.

March 17, 2016

Statistical Profile of Unmarried Women: South Dakota

Our research team has compiled available data from the US Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other sources to put together this statistical profile of the demographic and economic circumstances facing unmarried women in the state of South Dakota.

March 17, 2016

Statistical Profile of Unmarried Women: New Mexico

Our research team has compiled available data from the US Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other sources to put together this statistical profile of the demographic and economic circumstances facing unmarried women in the state of New Mexico.

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