Maybe We Need More Women in Health Insurance?

This morning Donald Trump sent out this tweet:

Description of tweet: Text reads “Great meeting with CEOs of leading U.S. health insurance companies who provide great healthcare to the American people.” Image shows Donald Trump sitting at a desk surrounded by 12 predominantly older businessmen (11 are white and 1 is black). 

I look at that image and I feel invisible. There are more white women in this country than there are white men, and still we get images like this. Yes, there is one black man in the room—but what of black women, or other women of color? Interestingly, when Obama met with representatives of health insurance companies, there were women in the room. The same was true when he signed the ACA. There was an effort made. Trump is not making an effort.

So much for women having a seat at the table, huh?

Description of tweet: This tweet by @IvankaTrump reads “A great discussion with two world leaders about the importance of women having a seat at the table” and shows Ivanka Trump sitting at a desk flanked by Donald Trump and Canada’s Justin Trudeau. 

In all seriousness, this willingness to exclude women from talks that intimately affect them (in some ways more than men, given that most men do not have to worry about prenatal care or, usually, birth control) is a serious problem—and one that helps explain why health insurance companies had to be literally forced to cover birth control and prenatal care. And remember this panel, anyone? That this can continue happening, in 2017, is appalling.

Finally, unless things have very much changed since I visited the doctor, contrary to Trump’s tweet health insurance companies do not “provide” healthcare. They fund it, but they do not provide it. Hospitals and clinics and doctors and nurses provide healthcare. This may seem like a nitpick, but I think Trump’s statement says something very important about the stranglehold the health insurance industry has on our country’s narratives surrounding healthcare.

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