Yes, Women do Spend More on Healthcare
I was doing some research today on women’s use of healthcare and came across an article in the journal Health Services Research showing healthcare expenditure differences by gender. I thought readers would find the findings interesting:
Principal Findings
Per capita lifetime expenditure is $316,600, a third higher for females ($361,200) than males ($268,700). Two-fifths of this difference owes to women’s longer life expectancy. Nearly one-third of lifetime expenditures is incurred during middle age, and nearly half during the senior years. For survivors to age 85, more than one-third of their lifetime expenditures will accrue in their remaining years.
However, these stats look to be from 2004 or before. Does anyone know of some updated statistics on healthcare differences between the genders?
Also, if women are living longer and spending more on healthcare costs, tell me why there is a “war on women” in healthcare?
2008: Gender differences in health care expenditures, resource utilization, and quality of care. (available online here).
Per year expenses don’t actually differ much past age 65, but the longer life expectancy boosts costs significantly there. (Of course, if you look at those living similar lifestyles (male and female monastic communities), that life expectancy difference largely disappears).
Thanks for the links, they are useful!
“Also, if women are living longer and spending more on healthcare costs, tell me why there is a “war on women” in healthcare?”
Because… shut up!
If it hasn’t been said somewhere already, I’m sure it will be. :massiveeyeroll:
Dunno what difference the ob-gyn uses that are necessary make, but it makes sense for extra expenditure on that basis… also if you charge the birth doctor to her, rather than to the child, that adds… but in the long run, this almost seems like the difference in care. I’d be curious to see how women actually feel about their care, but every doctor male or female that I ever had comes across as a huge NAG. So I tend to avoid UNLESS I’m actually sick.
D,
Read the post again. 5/6ths of the spending is during middle age and the golden years, i.e., post-fertility. Obstetrics ain’t the culprit, it can’t be blamed on the kidlets.
As with all things spouted by liberals – it’s untrue when you look at it. But it allows the media to print it since none of them ever check the facts…
It’s just a manufactured issue, just like racial hysteria, to get votes for Democrats. They don’t care about the harm done to women, families, men, and society because they.think every problem will be solved if they.get enough power.
A. Yes, Women do Spend More on Healthcare
B. Yes, More is Spent on Healthcare for Women
Not quite the same, are they?
Zorro beat me to it. More is spent on womens’ healthcare, but that’s not the same as saying they pay more. They may actually spend more in some cases (co-pays, deductibles, etc.), but most of the difference in amount spent on them is covered by insurance for which they pay no more than men.
True. If it were reversed they’d say we spend more on men because we value them more. But sine it isn’t they say it is because we exploit them more. Whichever metric that angers women to the polls is the appropriate metric.
That is because their political principle is not about women, nor children, nminorities, nor the poor, nor social justice, nor gays, nor anything else the left preaches–the left’s first political principle is opportunism.
Feminist Response “Well OF COURSE women spend more – testosterone-addled men beat and rape us nonstop! Also, VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA.”
From the Great Carnac:
“A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and Thou.”
Name three things with yeast.
God, but I miss Johnny Carson!
If there’s a war on women, why did the CDC spend $206 million for breast cancer early detection and awareness campaigns while spending $13 million for prostate cancer awareness campaigns?
http://www.aacr.org/home/public–media/science-policy–government-affairs/resources-for-policymakers/federal-cancer-research-funding.aspx
Good question. It seems like if men are so reluctant to go to the doctor, more awareness of illnesses that affect men should be funded, not less.
I’m not at all convinced that men habitually avoid doctors, and I most certainly do not believe that men have such egos where they want to show off how tough they are by avoiding the doctor either.
Granted, it’s anecdotal and based on life experience, but at least an honest and unbiased study needs to be done as to why (hah, good luck with that, I know).
Take my father for instance. He spent most of his working life in the trades, either with companies that didn’t offer health insurance, or with companies that paid hourly wages where taking off work for a doctor’s visit meant he didn’t get paid for that time he worked. Many other men, at least the one’s that haven’t had their jobs shipped overseas or eliminated by the service economy outright, are in similar positions.
Those jobs, unsurprisingly, tend to be the ones that take a physical toll on one’s body.
Contrast this with women working office jobs that are physically undemanding, salaried, and offer some degree of health benefits. There’s no penalty for missing work for a doctor appointment. There’s no penalty for missing work to pick up sick kids or kids in day care either for that matter. Those are one reason they gravitate to such lines of work.
So, I’d like to see a genuine, honest study as to why men don’t go to the doctor. Is it because they need to put beans on the table and can’t afford to miss a couple hours of work, is it because they work construction and other trades that have little to no health coverage, or is it something cultural like a physician telling a man that pain is just minor and due to a lifetime of hard work and not an indicator of a more serious condition and he should be a man and suck it up.
Steve, I’m sure that all of the things you mention are true. I will point out that I’ve seen some stats — need to find that again — that the life expectancy difference persists even if you only look at white-collar men who work in office jobs. There’s a further cultural thing that I think factors in, at least for those of us in the older generations: we were taught from a young age that a man must never be a burden to his family. That means that a lot of men my age and older refuse life-extending treatments if such treatments don’t restore their ability to support their families, or would drain the family’s savings. My great-uncle, to name one. He had cancer and he refused radiation treatments that might have bought him a few more years, in part because he didn’t want to leave my great-aunt with the expenses.
I get regular checkups as necessary. I don’t go to a doctor for every sniffle, ache or pain. That’s wimpy. Aches and pains are a part of life.
I’m a private pilot. Doctors are the natural enemy of pilots because a medical problem can cause us to be grounded. It isn’t as bad today as it used to be but doctors are still to be avoided whenever possible. I suspect there are other occupations with similar issues.
While more is spent on health care for women, in some states such as Colorado it is illegal to charge women higher premiums for health insurance. IIRC, ObamaCare makes that national law.
Teenaged boys tend to have higher accident rates so they pay higher auto insurance premiums. That’s reasonable, proper and legal.
Men tend to die earlier than women so they pay higher life insurance premiums. That’s reasonable, proper and legal.
So, why is it not reasonable, proper and legal for women to pay higher health insurance premiums? Forcing the rates to be the same means men pay more than they should for health insurance so women can pay less than they should. This is a subsidizy for women.
Anecdote but real life: I ran a military hospital laboratory for several years and easily two thirds of my budget was spent womens’ issues. Pregnancy testing, fertility testing, ectopic pregnancies, menstrual problems, STDs, breast biopsies, etc. Not to mention that return of the spouse suddenly reminded them of some “minor problems” that needed to be checked right away. These were, for the most part, young, “healthy”, physically fit women. Expensive indeed!
Based on my experiences with school athletics, seems to me this issue could be resolved with some sort of Title IX program for medicine. Just cut womens’ access to medical care until it’s more in line with what men are currently using.
Bitter? Maybe.
IF women actually pay more for health care (which I seriously doubt — “equality” being biased in women’s favor as it is) it probably is because if they didn’t pay more, they’d be running to the doctor for every time they’d sneeze and sniffle or cough.
Make healthcare cheap (or free), and you’ll soon find the system being clogged up with hypochondriacs.
The cost of insuring females
xhttp://americanactionnetwork.org/topic/economics-and-%E2%80%9Cgender-gap%E2%80%9D-health-insurance