How States Can Relieve the Burden of Women’s High-Cost Private Health Coverage

Health coverage plays a critical role in enabling women to access health care. It can alleviate some of health care’s financial burden and often determines whether or not individuals seek care at all. For example, before the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), nearly half (48 percent) of women ages 19–64 reported delaying medical care due to cost, but this number has dropped by more than 40 percent (to only 28 percent) since the law was enacted.1 This decrease was largely driven by expansions in health coverage: the uninsured rate for women has dropped by half since the ACA was passed (20 percent to 10 percent).