Letter: Equal treatment for women

December 29, 2009, St. Petersburg Times

The Senate passed health care reform at the expense of women. Senators who supported reform were forced to accept an unworkable abortion provision.

The provision pushed by Nebraska's Sen. Ben Nelson imposes significant new obstacles to women seeking health care coverage, requiring tens of millions of Americans to write two checks to pay for private health insurance instead of just one.

It also creates complicated administrative burdens for insurance companies. Opponents of abortion want to make it so difficult to cover even medically necessary abortions that insurance companies will elect not to.

We need a health care bill that treats women and women's health the same way it treats everyone else and other kinds of health care.

Michelle Strouse, Sarasota