Which Dem Has the Most Woman-Friendly Health Plan?

So who's got the most women-friendly health care plan?

Is it Hillary, Obama or Edwards?

Answer: none of the above.

Only Dennis Kucinich offers what women really need: single-payer, universal health care.

To the others I have one question: Why are you ignoring over 50 years of experience in our peer nations, which show that the public provision of health care delivers far better results at far lower costs?

The national disparities in women's deaths between the United States and countries such as Canada, France and Germany are horrendous.

In the United States there are 77 female deaths from heart disease per 100,000 women, according to current World Health Organization data. In Germany that first key number is 68; in Canada 54; in France 21. For pulmonary disease the U.S. performance is even worse. The rate per 100,000 in the United States is 33; in Canada 13. In France and Germany it's 7.

But universal health insurance does more than fight the diseases that afflict women. By extending better coverage and care to everyone it goes to the heart of women's major inequity: our lower work-force participation due to the time we spend taking care of the preschoolers, sick kids, elderly parents and disabled spouses.

Women's wages are often reported to be about 80 percent of men's. But that figure seriously understates the actual loss of earnings due to gender and caretaking. The 2004 report "Still a Man's Labor Market" by the Women's Institute for Policy Research puts the gap closer to 60 percent.

But the proposals by the Big 3 will not stop women from being the ones to leave work -- or not even attempt it at all -- when the health care system breaks down.

Nice Features

All three plans have some nice features. All call for a ban on the insurer practice of "adverse risk selection," which means enrolling healthy people and rejecting those more likely to require doctors, hospitals and medicine. All allow Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices.

But each plan shortchanges women in some similar ways.

For starters, each relies on tax credits to help people buy health insurance -- the purchase of which will be mandatory -- from existing private, mostly for-profit, insurers.

Do tax credits really help women, given that women earn considerably less than men? No. The value of tax credits decline as income falls so the more generous the tax credit the greater the benefit to the highest earners: men.

The trio of plans by Hillary, Obama and Edwards are also equally hard on women by requiring some level of out-of-pocket payments.

Even when women have insurance coverage their economic insecurity means they are more likely than men to economize on their medications and minimize follow-up treatment. All of this was first reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation and confirmed earlier this year by a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Caretakers Need a Real Break

The three private insurer-based plans are also identically stingy toward caretakers.

Some plans -- Hillary's and Edwards' -- would cover respite care to help caregivers. Edwards offers up flextime, longer leave periods and paid leaves to help "parents" balance work and family.

Although well intentioned these policies reinforce the social expectation that women will be able to meet the daily needs of those who cannot help themselves.

If, for example, federal legislation required employers to grant flextime to help care for the elderly, our social expectations of women would mean that any one of them who didn't use this option -- who didn't toss aside her paying job to assume this role -- would be subject to criticism.

And the news media wouldn't shy from broadcasting every report -- however marginal or questionable its methodology -- that showed how much better it is for the elderly to be in the care of a daughter than a professional attendant.