Posted by Kristie Arslan - I was asked to speak today on the Ms. CEO Show, a national talk radio show for women entrepreneurs, regarding health reform. It got me thinking about whether women entrepreneurs and their male counterparts had differing perspectives on health reform. Luckily, the NASE released a study in June of last year, Health Coverage: A Micro-Business Perspective, which offers some insight on the varying viewpoints of the sexes.
Interestingly, the NASE found that women micro-business owners were less confident then male entrepreneurs about where to go to find health coverage for themselves and their employees. Yet, more women-owned businesses felt it necessary to offer health insurance benefits to attract and hire quality workers.
Women and men micro-business owners also had alternative perspectives on what is causing health care to be so expensive. Overwhelmingly women micro-businesses (33.5 percent vs. 24.5 percent of men) believed that insurance companies are making too much profit and thus, causing the high costs of health coverage while men felt that the fees of doctors and hospitals as well as medical malpractice lawsuits played a large role in driving costs upward.
When discussing whether specific changes to our health care system would make things better or worse, 62.7 percent of the female respondents strongly believed that increased regulation on health insurers, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies would make the system better compared to only 51% of male micro-business owners. Additionally, there was larger support for the federal government to more actively manage health care amongst women micro-business owners.
As we see, the battle of sexes even permeates the health reform debate.