I think it has been an interesting time in the news for woman lately. Starting on a positive note, yesterday it was announced that the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak. Their research was on telomeres and telomerases , which are sort of like protective caps of "junk DNA" at the end of chromosomes. When the "junk DNA" is gone, most cells cannot make more and will die off. Stem cells and cancer cells are amongst the cells which can make more telomeres--thus they don't die off like other cells. That is a good thing with it comes to our stem cells and obviously a really bad thing when it comes to cancer cells. It has also provided information about aging. This research on telomeres and telomerases has taught the scientific community much more about the cell cycle and death than was probably anticipated when the Nobel Laureates started their research in the 1970. Yes, I said 1970s. This research was completed int he 1970s and 1980s and results of their research are so essential to understanding the cell cycle, that it is taught at the undergraduate level.
Getting back to my point, there have never been two women that have won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in the same year. In fact, between the years of 1901 and 2008, only 36 times have Nobel Prizes been awarded to women (to 35 different women--Marie Curie, has been honoured twice, with the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry won Nobel Prizes). There have been two winners in Physics, three winners in Chemistry, eight winners in Physiology or Medicine, eleven winners in Literature, and twelve winners in Peace. Less than half of the Nobel Prizes won by women have been in the sciences. It is so exciting to have two women win the prize for medicine this year! I've been reading some articles about the lack of women winners. Some have noted that the Nobel Prizes, especially in the sciences, are usually granted years after the research occurred and since historically women were not scientific researchers, women are for today's standards underrepresented due to a delay in time of research completion to recognition. Others have suggested that women have been overlooked. I'm not sure of the answer, but I'm extremely excited that two women have won the award in medicine this year and to top it all off, all three of the winners are Americans!
On the other end of the spectrum, I've read a few articles lately regarding health insurance and women. Did you know that in eight states being a victim of domestic abuse can be considered a pre-existing condition and you can legally and the District of Colombia be denied insurance? I guess from an insurer's prospective this makes complete sense. A women who is abused would be more likely to get back into another abusive relationship or even return to her abuser. It makes sense that an insurer wouldn't want to pay for the broken bones, bruises, ruptured organs that could ensue if they insured someone with this history. Insuring this person would probably not be a big money maker so I guess that the insurance companies don't want to pay. I, personally, cannot believe that it is legal in some places in the United States to deny insurance because they have been a victim of abuse. If the woman decides to leave, she won't be able to get insurance. I'm not sure of the laws, but I believe that the insurance companies would have access to any mental health medical records, so they would be able to see if a women went to a therapist for help.
I'm probably not the most objective voice regarding pre-existing condition and health care coverage. I've chosen to go into medicine, not because it is a business and a way to profit, but because it is a way to care for others and study science. I don't have a business mind. I guess I think about the patients as people not profits. I know that it isn't fair to blindly judge everyone working in the insurance industry, because they may also disagree with practices of the industry; however, insurance is a business. Maybe the problem is just that: insurance is a business. Health insurance isn't like car insurance. If someone is denied car insurance because he or she habitually gets into accidents, I can understand. In fact, not insuring the person may protect others on the road (presuming that the non-insured person doesn't continue driving illegally). However, if someone is denied health insurance what does that say? The person is too big of a liability. Does it mean that we as a society believe the person is not worth caring for? Now, I'm not an economist, businesswoman or a politician and I have not researched this enough (I do have a set of boards to pass), but what if we had insurance companies that were not-for-profit. What if the profits that insurance companies make, were put right back into the pot and used to care for those using the insurance that were sick. What if there were no pre-existing conditions that would deny someone coverage. I would feel better paying for insurance knowing that if I did get sick, I wouldn't have claims denied because I've maxed out the policy; since rather than making profits for a company, that income would be used to actually insure people are cared for through the entire duration of their illness.
I, like 63% of physicians, support a public plan in the health care reform. I don't know what would be best and I don't know how the best way to put a policy in place, but I know that we, as Americans, need to offer health insurance to all and make it affordable to everyone. I read an article on Newsweek about Italian health care. It didn't sound perfect, but everyone was covered by the state and then you could buy insurance to have things done faster. I don't know if a plan similar to the Italians' is the answer to health care reform, but we have to be able to care for our people here in American like they do abroad. We have to provide some security--I've never head of people anywhere but the United States going bankrupt because of a health problem. Americans are busy doing outstanding research in Medicine, so outstanding that that win Nobel Prizes, now can't we also take care of our people as well?
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