Women and health insurance: implications for financing preconception health

Abstract

This article examines health insurance coverage among women of reproductive age and considers how national health insurance reform may affect access to high-quality, timely, and affordable preconception and interconception care. A focus on preconception and interconception care increasingly is understood as essential, not only to the health of women, but to that of infants as well, and thus, as a key part of a comprehensive infant health strategy. After a brief overview that examines the relationship between preconception and interconception health care and health insurance reform, the article examines the current state of health insurance coverage among women of childbearing age and the underlying causes of uninsurance and underinsurance in this population group. The article then sets forth a proposed health insurance reform taxonomy in the context of health and health care generally, and preconception and interconception health care in particular. It is the underlying assumption of this article that preconception and interconception care can serve as bellwethers of the extent to which health reform achieves preventive results. Such results include coverage reforms that not only put acute treatments within financial reach, but that also help finance interventions that can help to achieve population-wide preventive results, in this case, long-term improvement in the health of both women and children.