Is “Woman” a Pre-existing Condition?
Since the parts of health reform that should allow people to buy health insurance without regard to pre-existing conditions clauses will not be in force until 2014, I still have a few more years to ride this particular soapbox. Both men and women can be rated up or declined for private medical plans. This is true. But there are some particularly female issues that we need to examine about the way that insurers underwrite applicants.
In general, women cost more to insure (health insurance). It is sort of ironic that women’s life insurance may be cheaper becuase they are expected, in general, to live longer. But they are also expected to run up higher medical costs, and so their health insurance premiums are higher. This may even make a certain sense, in a way. Spend more on medical care and live longer. Who knew? Anyway, women’s health insurance premiums usually cost more, if you are comparing people of different genders in the same area, with the same age, etc.
We will allow that this gender rating may have a certain logic.
But let’s go on. Did you know that women who have been victims of domestic abuse could be denied because they are more likely to suffer abuse again?
Rape victims can also be denied, though I am not clear that this leads to a similar statistic. This is not true in all US state, because insurance regulations are local, but it does affect millions of Americans. I believe it has something to do with normal treatment for rape victimes which includes an HIV vaccine. These women have never tested positive for HIV, but were given the medication as a precaution, and it still caused health insurers to deny them.
We can even find this discrimination in something more common like C-sections that a woman might need to save her life or the babies life. That operation could cause a decline, or it could cause a insurance company to excluse that procedure from future coverage.
What is common about all of these cases? Well, it is very likely that a man had something to do with them. Most of the time, the aggresive person in domestic abuse or rape is a man. And women do not get pregnant on their own. But women have to bear the higher cost of getting health insurance. Is this fair, or should we all just share the risk?
What do you think? You can register for free to comment.
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I hear you. Insurers are not really discriminating – life is discriminating. But I agree it is fair if we drop gender rating and let everybody just bear the burden for these things.