Medicare Is Leaving Elderly Women Behind

While its positive effects are certainly noteworthy for elderly women, Medicare just doesn’t seem to have the horsepower to accommodate their longer life spans and higher rates of poverty to anywhere near the point of gender equality. The list of services that Medicare does not currently provide––dental care, hearing aids, non-medically necessary foot care, home health services, long-term supports, nursing homes––may sound like unnecessary and costly miscellanea when compared with many private insurance plans. But the oldest segments of the Medicare population suffer from issues like chronic diseases, disabilities, and dementia that make these services indispensable. And given that women make up 67 percent of those over 85, that they are more likely to suffer from these issues than same-aged men, and that they suffer worse effects from diseases like dementia, they are by far the most likely to be left in the cold.