April 1, 2010--Gender Rating
Up until now, when it came to health insurance, being a woman has been considered a pre-existing condition.
Before the new heath care bill became law, it was perfectly permissible for insurance companies to charge women substantially more than men for the exact same coverage. Up to 48 percent more. That is not a typo--up to 48 percent more. (See linked New York Times article.)
The rationale had been that women, smarter than men about these and other matters, go to doctors more and therefore should pay more. But in many cases the extra costs were pure sex discrimination. For example, to many insurers, men who smoked were charged less than women who didn't. What does this have to do with seeking health care more frequently? In fact, since smoking leads to all sorts of complicated and expensive diseases, men more than women later in life wind up with much more cancer, heart and lung disease, and diabetes. All difficult and costly to treat.
This two-tiered practice is called "gender rating," where being a woman, by definition, rated you in a way that required you to pay more. Often, much more. This supplemental charging applied to group as well as individual health insurance policies.
Further, to many insurers, if a woman had had a C-Section or was the victim of domestic abuse, she also was considered to have a pre-existing condition and either couldn't get insurance at all or had to pay quite a bit more than even other women for coverage.
All of this is now forbidden.
Until now I thought dry cleaners were gouging who charged women more to launder a blouse than they charged men to clean a shirt. Now I realize that insurance companies have been doing a version of the same thing and literally getting away with murder.
Actually, I have heard about these discriminatory practices but, in truth, thought the reports were exaggerated for political effect--since there are more women than men and they vote in even greater percentages, I assumed some of the stories were intentionally overblown in order to mobilize votes for the passage of health care legislation. I now realize, they were underreported.
During the past 14 months while the bill was being debated why didn't we hear more about how women have been historically under served and taken advantage of by health care providers? A full blown communications effort of this sort might have helped move things along. Perhaps even Republican Senators Olympia Snow and Susan Collins would have realized that they too are women and seen that they have common cause with others of their gender not fortunate enough to have the kind of insurance senators have.
I know, I'm dreaming. But one can always hope.
Before the new heath care bill became law, it was perfectly permissible for insurance companies to charge women substantially more than men for the exact same coverage. Up to 48 percent more. That is not a typo--up to 48 percent more. (See linked New York Times article.)
The rationale had been that women, smarter than men about these and other matters, go to doctors more and therefore should pay more. But in many cases the extra costs were pure sex discrimination. For example, to many insurers, men who smoked were charged less than women who didn't. What does this have to do with seeking health care more frequently? In fact, since smoking leads to all sorts of complicated and expensive diseases, men more than women later in life wind up with much more cancer, heart and lung disease, and diabetes. All difficult and costly to treat.
This two-tiered practice is called "gender rating," where being a woman, by definition, rated you in a way that required you to pay more. Often, much more. This supplemental charging applied to group as well as individual health insurance policies.
Further, to many insurers, if a woman had had a C-Section or was the victim of domestic abuse, she also was considered to have a pre-existing condition and either couldn't get insurance at all or had to pay quite a bit more than even other women for coverage.
All of this is now forbidden.
Until now I thought dry cleaners were gouging who charged women more to launder a blouse than they charged men to clean a shirt. Now I realize that insurance companies have been doing a version of the same thing and literally getting away with murder.
Actually, I have heard about these discriminatory practices but, in truth, thought the reports were exaggerated for political effect--since there are more women than men and they vote in even greater percentages, I assumed some of the stories were intentionally overblown in order to mobilize votes for the passage of health care legislation. I now realize, they were underreported.
During the past 14 months while the bill was being debated why didn't we hear more about how women have been historically under served and taken advantage of by health care providers? A full blown communications effort of this sort might have helped move things along. Perhaps even Republican Senators Olympia Snow and Susan Collins would have realized that they too are women and seen that they have common cause with others of their gender not fortunate enough to have the kind of insurance senators have.
I know, I'm dreaming. But one can always hope.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:39 AM
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