Financial and information barriers prevent older women from using critical preventive services. For example, in recent years, just 1 in 7 women have taken advantage of Medicare-covered mammograms. Most elderly Americans covered by Medicare are women. New revenue is necessary to ensure that the Medicare trust fund is solvent when women in the baby boom generation retire. Since most women turning 65 today are expected to live through 2018, the projected insolvency of the Medicare Trust Fund will occur within their lifetimes.
Women have greater health care needs and lower income.
Older women are more likely to need Medicare s health care services. About 73 percent have two or more chronic illnesses compared to 65 percent of men. Women's incomes are lower than men's incomes, and they must stretch fewer financial resources over longer lives. Seven out of 10 Medicare beneficiaries living below poverty are women. The increased likelihood that women will live alone in their later years places them at increased risk of poverty.