More women than men with employer-sponsored insurance coverage report issues with affordability, according to a new study, though overall issues with affording care were rare.
The analysis, published in late December in the Journal of the American Medical Association, analyzed data on more than 238,000 people who receive coverage through their employer that was submitted to the National Health Interview Survey between 2000 and 2020 and found, on average, 3.9% of women said they could not afford medical care compared to 2.7% of men. In addition, 5.2% of women on average could not afford prescription drugs compared to 2.7% of men surveyed.
The survey also found that more women reported issues with affording dental care as well as mental health care. The authors note that overall, however, relatively few people reported issues with affordability.
"Women often have higher healthcare needs than men, as well as specific challenges to accessing and affording health care," the researchers, based at New York University, said. "Healthcare policy changes and recent economic trends may have had differential effects on healthcare affordability for men and women."
The study found that reported concerns with affordability increased for both men and women between 2000 and 2010, before trending downward. However, these issues increased again substantially from about 2017 onward. In 2020, about 12% of women surveyed said they could not afford dental care, more than 6% could not afford mental health care and just under 6% could not afford medical care.
By comparison, in 2020, about 8% of men said the same about dental care, and about 2% said they struggled to afford mental health care and/or medical care.
The authors said the findings suggest employers should take a closer look at their benefits to address gender affordability gaps.
"Employer-sponsored insurance benefits may need to be redesigned to reduce sex differences in health care unaffordability," they wrote.