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Women Pay More Under Current Health Insurance

Women of child-bearing age routinely pay more for health care because they’re women. If they’re pregnant, they can be legally denied coverage.

Women face other problems in today’s insurance market: They tend to need more preventive care and therefore are subject to more co-pays and deductibles, and single heads of households are often women, meaning they’re responsible for the family’s health care bills.

Legislation now being considered by Congress to overhaul America’s health care system would dramatically change the rules, and there’s general agreement that this is a problem that needs fixing.

“This is very significant, particularly for women buying policies on their own,” said Linda Blumberg, senior fellow and economist at the Urban Institute, a policy research group.

Bills moving through Congress would end the longstanding practice of basing rates on gender, which is allowed in most states. Legislation also would eliminate co-pays and deductibles for preventive care, require maternity coverage to be offered at reasonable rates and provide financial help for those who couldn’t afford coverage.

The changes have widespread support, not only from women’s groups but notably from Karen Ignagni, president and chief executive officer of America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents insurers.

But there is some disagreement.

“The Democrats are choosing to ignore a basic fact: Their health care bill will raise taxes, increase costs and raise insurance premiums on men, women and families alike … a trillion-dollar government takeover of health care will actually make things worse,” said Antonia Ferrier, spokeswoman for House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio.

Nancy Pfotenhauer, spokeswoman for Patients First, a conservative group, argued that creating a government-run program to compete with the public sector, as legislation in the House of Representatives and one major Senate measure would do, “will devastate American women and undermine our access to affordable quality health care.”

In that argument, private insurers eventually would stop covering people, meaning Americans would have to resort to government for their care.

“Women will have less autonomy and control,” Pfotenhauer said.

Three House committees and the Senate Health Committee have written bills that include a public option, or a government-run alternative to private insurance, while the Senate Finance Committee rejected the idea. Instead, it would create co-ops, or nonprofit member-run plans.

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