The health care system in the United States is fraught with challenges, especially for people who heavily rely on Medicare or its twin Medicaid. Collectively these services cater for the needs of much of the population.
For seniors, Medicare is particularly important and it is critical for helping to ensure that they can actually afford the medical costs that they face. Because of this, Medicare has played a huge role in reducing poverty rates, for seniors, especially as healthcare costs continue to rise.
Yet, at the same time, Medicare is limited, particularly for senior women.
Indeed, senior women have presented an issue for many programs and are often not adequately catered for. On average, women have always had longer lifespans than men, yet, the benefits that they receive tend to be the same.
This pattern also means that women will frequently outlive their partners. Doing so can create significant changes, leaving women to face the emotional and physical challenges that come with becoming a widow.
At the same time, on average, females tend to have lower incomes than males, which can also contribute to greater challenges for females, especially later in life.
Medicare has played a key role in helping to support females through these situations through the support it provides. But, Medicare isn’t explicitly designed to address the specific challenges that females face in later life.
For that matter, Medicare isn’t powerful enough to do so effectively.
That issue is abundantly clear simply by looking at the range of important services that Medicare does not support, including dental care, home health services, nursing homes and long-term supports.
Many of these problems services may not seem important but they do play key roles in quality of life and even in long-term health. In fact, receiving care in these areas can be particularly significant for reducing the amount of health complications that occur later in life.
It’s also worth noting that as people age, their risk of chronic conditions increases. Once again, this is especially important for women, who make up around 67% of people aged 85 and above. Women are also more likely to suffer health issues and may have worse outcomes than males of the same age.
All of these issues mean that as people age, the challenge of healthcare gets significantly worse, while the amount of money available decreases. Even with all that Medicare covers, there are still many missing areas and the costs of copayments and of medication can be excessively expensive.
For some seniors, the cost of health means that they simply cannot get the support that they need – or that they have to forgo other needs (such as food) to be able to do so.
To make matters worse, there is no simple solution for this issue.
In fact, the problem is one that is barely being talked about, even among political contenders in this coming election. Instead, the various details and approaches that are being discussed are unlikely to meet the needs of senior women.
There is still potential for solutions, of course, and hopefully this issue is one that will be focused on much more strongly in the future. However, in the meantime, Medicare has its limitations and many elderly women find themselves struggling to pay for their medical costs and to remain healthy. There are various supports and options in place that can help to fill in those gaps but ultimately, Medicare is limited in this area and at some point, improvement is needed.
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