Posted on 03/30/2010 9:40:09 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition. That’s the new mantra, repeated triumphantly by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Barbara A. Mikulski and other advocates for women’s health. But what does it mean?
In the broadest sense, the new health care law forbids sex discrimination in health insurance. Previously, there was no such ban, and insurance companies took full advantage of the void.
“The health care industry and health care insurance in general has been riddled with the most discriminatory and unfair practices to women,” said Marcia D. Greenberger, the founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center. “This law is a giant leap forward to dismantling the unfairness that has been a part of the system.”
Until now, it has been perfectly legal in most states for companies selling individual health policies — for people who do not have group coverage through employers — to engage in “gender rating,” that is, charging women more than men for the same coverage, even for policies that do not include maternity care. The rationale was that women used the health care system more than men. But some companies charged women who did not smoke more than men who did, even though smokers have more risks. The differences in premiums, from 4 percent to 48 percent, according to a 2008 analysis by the law center, can add up to hundreds of dollars a year. The individual market is the one that many people turn to when they lose their jobs and their group coverage.
Insurers have also applied gender-rating to group coverage, but laws against sex discrimination in the workplace prevent employers from passing along the higher costs to their employees based on sex.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Insurance companies price risk or go bankrupt. Life insurance premiums are higher for men than women of the same age because male life expectancy is lower.
Not to mention car insurance.
“The rationale was that women used the health care system more than men.”
Not rationale...fact.
I suppose they are going to stop charging men more for auto insurance from age 16 to 25? It makes just as much sense to ban that practice. While I’ll admit that men are more likely to drive fast, and more likely to do so after excessive liquid refreshment, thus costing their insurance companies more on average, it’s discriminatory to pass that cost along based on statistical risk levels to those who cost more to insure.
Note: I know that my explanation makes no sense. I’m wondering why the libs think theirs is any better.
Obamacare sets a price ceiling on shoes?
Now,women are a majority of the workforce.They’ll have to
pay for all those out of work angry white men!
So far the young are getting screwed (way overpaying on thier premiums).
Men are getting screwed (per this article).
Senior citizens are getting screwed (reductions in medicaire and longer waits).
So the big winner looks like middle aged women who aren’t married and don’t care about their families(because otherwise they’d care about their husbands and kids and parents being worse off),
Middle aged women who aren’t married and don’t care about their families — what’s that a 90% Democratic voting demographic?
I think women are far more likely to run down to the the doctor every time they have the sniffles than a guy is
Actually, it is because women have a much more complicated plumbing system than men.
Don’t tell me, let me guess.
Somewhere, there’s a warehouse owned by Barney Frank full of unsold Helen Reddy 8-track tapes that the government now needs to store medical records.
Statistically I think the numbers are a woman sees a doctor 6 or 7 times for every one time a man goes. A combination of womens’ complex reproductive health and the doctor-averse nature of males.
This has been creeping along for some time though. I have noticed in my local news for years a pattern where some woman was denied coverage for a mammogram or a pap smear. They went on-air and whined about it for 30 seconds to the Action News Team, which invariably resulted in some State Senator tossing a bill in the hopper to require coverage for whatever she had wanted.
They were never women to begin with.
I assume they are counting maternity visits...each pregnancy includes 12 pre-natal visits and 1 post partum visit. 13 visits in one year surely bumps up the average for women.
perhaps our premiums are higher because we are more likely to throw grenades at anyone who tries to mess with our kids. ;)
Well, Male smokers rarely, if ever, get pregnant.
Mrs WBill bought insurance that didn't cover pregnancy (without going into detail that's not an issue - at least it BETTER not be, ahem, any more). The cost savings was dramatic.
Whereas, I on the other hand, am completely covered for pregnancy on my employer's insurance policy. Also, all mental health issues, drug+alcohol dependency, fertility treatments (in case I choose to get pregnant, lol), and a whole raft of other things that I'll never, ever use if I live to be 100.
Call me simple, but I think that Health Care could have been completely fixed by just taking government mandates off insurance companies.
But, that's just me.
What they dont admit:
Obamacare screws men.
“
They are not reducing the cost of being a woman. They are just making someone else pay the bills. “
Well said.
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