Health Care Reform Bill Must Eliminate Gender Discrimination

[The Straight Story]

Mad As Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore!
Health Care Reform Bill Must Eliminate Gender Discrimination

Tell members of your congressional delegation that throwing women under the bus in health care reform legislation is not acceptable. Contrary to what women's advocates have repeatedly been told, it now appears health care legislation allows gender rating after all. This, coupled with the anti-abortion rights language and other problems, renders the bill not worth passing unless these harmful provisions are removed.

President Obama stated in his major health policy address that reform legislation would prohibit gender rating, a practice that results in charging women up to 48 percent higher premiums. The Senate bill would allow gender discrimination for employees of companies with more than 100 employees, affecting tens of millions of women. This is unacceptable.

Tell your senators and representatives that you will seek out progressive, feminist candidates who support women's equal and affordable health care, including coverage of abortion care, to replace them -- if they support extreme restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion care and fail to eliminate gender rating in the final bill.

http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/5996/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=845

[FarCenter]

1. Don't women use more health care services than men?

If so, their insurance premiums should be higher.

[kestrel91316]

2. Pregnant women may use more services, temporarily. Many of us have

never been pregnant. And IIRC women are far less likely to HAVE INSURANCE, so we are more likely to stay out of doctors' offices altogether.

I think men use an awful lot of medical services for ED and prostate problems, lol. And they have more heart disease that needs expensive surgery.

If you wanna play that game, you're not gonna win.

[Imajika]

3. How can he not win?

Insurance prices are pegged to risk. That is how insurance works.

The more services a group uses, the more expensive their insurance.

Insurance for young men is especially cheap compared to young women because young men tend to use far less health care services.

As males age, their insurance costs tend to start rising rapidly because they tend to have some of the problems you mentioned. Eventually the disparity in rates closes and women are priced much more like men because they both use health care at the same rate.

Sometimes I think people just have no clue how insurance even works.

And as for the OP, what some groups are asking is for insurance companies not to factor in the fact that in certain age brackets women just use far more health care services. The idea is to basically lower female rates and raise male rates so that they are equal. If you are insuring a male and female together, things would even out. If your insuring 2 females, their price would drop substantially. If your insuring 2 males their price will skyrocket. Single females benefit. Single males pay far more. That is basically how it will work out if we stop factoring in the fact that women just use more services in certain age brackets.