I’ve heard a lot about how women are still mistreated in a lot of areas, including employment eligibility and payment. I also knew from an article I read a year or two ago that in many teaching hospitals, medical students will very often be brought into women’s surgeries and instructed to practice pelvic exams on them without the women ever being informed, much less asked for consent. But I didn’t know about how insurance companies discriminate so heavily against us. All of this information is from an article in this month’s issue of Prevention.
There is a practice called “gender rating” that occurs in some 37 states when an insurance company gives different rates for a man and a woman of identical age and health status. Women are often charged more or even turned down altogether as a result of their gender, and the insurance company is usually not even required to inform them of the reason for their rejection. Women can be turned down for being victims of sexual and domestic abuse, usually because of any counseling and anti-STD precautions that are associated with these abuses. Apparently 8 states and the District of Columbia specifically allow domestic abuse as grounds for refusal of services. Planning for adoption or pregnancy or having had a C-section can also get a woman denied; companies are worried about the illnesses the children might have and the possibility that the woman might need additional C-sections in the future.
A 2009 study by the National Women’s Law Center showed of the best-selling individual insurance policies in the US, 95% of the companies were guilty of gender rating and/or denying coverage based on gender. An example given in the article astounded me: 60% - sixty freaking percent – of the plans cited in the study charged a 40-year-old female nonsmoker up to 63% more than a man of the same age who did smoke. Women are charged up to 84% more than men of the same age and health, even for plans that exclude prenatal and childbirth care, so it’s not a question of the company wanting to cover the potential costs associated with pregnancy.
The justification for this? “It’s just business.” They base it on decades-old formulas and data that show that women “typically” go to the doctor more often than men do (for pelvic exams, usually) and take more medication (like BC pills), and rates for men tend to catch up as they get older and start going to the doctor more often. But women have typically spent up to 84% more over the years than they have. Sounds ridiculous to me, as it’s just good practice for everyone regardless of gender to try to see the doctor for an exam at least once every year! If you think about it, preventative care can help prevent massive treatment costs on down the road anyway, so keeping all their customers in an annual routine of checkups will end up saving them money…so this justification is useless to me.
Similar formulas were used in the past to determine that minority (nonwhite) applicants were “higher-risk” than white applicants, and those race rating practices have since been thrown out, because they aren’t fair! Gender rating is just as wrong, but it’s still considered okay by the same companies who threw out the race rating voluntarily. Guess enough people were rightly outraged by the race rating, but don’t care a whit about gender discrimination.
The article lists a few ways to fight back if a company declines you because you don’t have a Y chromosome. You can call your state’s insurance commissioner to find out if gender rating is even legal in your state. If it isn’t, then you can build a case against the company. If it IS legal, an insurance broker may be able to help you find a more flexible company, or you can continue shopping around on your own. Healthcare.gov can help you find a state-funded or federally-funded alternative insurance plan, but they may want a copy of the denial letter with the application.
This kind of discrimination is supposed to be stopped by the healthcare law that was passed last year. It’s supposed to take full effect by 2014, when insurance companies will incur penalties for this behavior. But the Republicans in Congress are trying their hardest to get the law overturned. John Boehner in particular has said that they wish to “start over with commonsense solutions that get healthcare right,” but has failed to address the issue of gender rating. The author’s calls and emails that asked about it went unanswered.
So it seems the best thing to do is to write or call our Congress members and tell them unequivocally that whether they keep the current law or write a new one, we want gender rating outlawed, period. Threaten their seats; tell them that if they don’t do something to stop this practice, then you won’t vote for them.
There is a practice called “gender rating” that occurs in some 37 states when an insurance company gives different rates for a man and a woman of identical age and health status. Women are often charged more or even turned down altogether as a result of their gender, and the insurance company is usually not even required to inform them of the reason for their rejection. Women can be turned down for being victims of sexual and domestic abuse, usually because of any counseling and anti-STD precautions that are associated with these abuses. Apparently 8 states and the District of Columbia specifically allow domestic abuse as grounds for refusal of services. Planning for adoption or pregnancy or having had a C-section can also get a woman denied; companies are worried about the illnesses the children might have and the possibility that the woman might need additional C-sections in the future.
A 2009 study by the National Women’s Law Center showed of the best-selling individual insurance policies in the US, 95% of the companies were guilty of gender rating and/or denying coverage based on gender. An example given in the article astounded me: 60% - sixty freaking percent – of the plans cited in the study charged a 40-year-old female nonsmoker up to 63% more than a man of the same age who did smoke. Women are charged up to 84% more than men of the same age and health, even for plans that exclude prenatal and childbirth care, so it’s not a question of the company wanting to cover the potential costs associated with pregnancy.
The justification for this? “It’s just business.” They base it on decades-old formulas and data that show that women “typically” go to the doctor more often than men do (for pelvic exams, usually) and take more medication (like BC pills), and rates for men tend to catch up as they get older and start going to the doctor more often. But women have typically spent up to 84% more over the years than they have. Sounds ridiculous to me, as it’s just good practice for everyone regardless of gender to try to see the doctor for an exam at least once every year! If you think about it, preventative care can help prevent massive treatment costs on down the road anyway, so keeping all their customers in an annual routine of checkups will end up saving them money…so this justification is useless to me.
Similar formulas were used in the past to determine that minority (nonwhite) applicants were “higher-risk” than white applicants, and those race rating practices have since been thrown out, because they aren’t fair! Gender rating is just as wrong, but it’s still considered okay by the same companies who threw out the race rating voluntarily. Guess enough people were rightly outraged by the race rating, but don’t care a whit about gender discrimination.
The article lists a few ways to fight back if a company declines you because you don’t have a Y chromosome. You can call your state’s insurance commissioner to find out if gender rating is even legal in your state. If it isn’t, then you can build a case against the company. If it IS legal, an insurance broker may be able to help you find a more flexible company, or you can continue shopping around on your own. Healthcare.gov can help you find a state-funded or federally-funded alternative insurance plan, but they may want a copy of the denial letter with the application.
This kind of discrimination is supposed to be stopped by the healthcare law that was passed last year. It’s supposed to take full effect by 2014, when insurance companies will incur penalties for this behavior. But the Republicans in Congress are trying their hardest to get the law overturned. John Boehner in particular has said that they wish to “start over with commonsense solutions that get healthcare right,” but has failed to address the issue of gender rating. The author’s calls and emails that asked about it went unanswered.
So it seems the best thing to do is to write or call our Congress members and tell them unequivocally that whether they keep the current law or write a new one, we want gender rating outlawed, period. Threaten their seats; tell them that if they don’t do something to stop this practice, then you won’t vote for them.
