Posted on 10/30/2008 7:12:07 AM PDT by reaganaut1
WASHINGTON — Striking new evidence has emerged of a widespread gap in the cost of health insurance, as women pay much more than men of the same age for individual insurance policies providing identical coverage, according to new data from insurance companies and online brokers.
Some insurance executives expressed surprise at the size and prevalence of the disparities, which can make a woman’s insurance cost hundreds of dollars a year more than a man’s. Women’s advocacy groups have raised concerns about the differences, and members of Congress have begun to question the justification for them.
The new findings, which are not easily explained away, come amid anxiety about the declining economy. More and more people are shopping for individual health insurance policies because they have lost jobs that provided coverage. Politicians of both parties have offered proposals that would expand the role of the individual market, giving people tax credits or other assistance to buy coverage on their own.
“Women often fare worse than men in the individual insurance market,” said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Finance Committee.
Insurers say they have a sound reason for charging different premiums: Women ages 19 to 55 tend to cost more than men because they typically use more health care, especially in the childbearing years.
But women still pay more than men for insurance that does not cover maternity care. In the individual market, maternity coverage may be offered as an optional benefit, or rider, for a hefty additional premium.
...
In general, insurers say, they charge women more than men of the same age because claims experience shows that women use more health care services. They are more likely to visit doctors, to get regular checkups, to take prescription medications and to have certain chronic illnesses.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Not to mention that women generally go to the doctor more often than men! This is just more class division bs IMHO.
How unfair that they should pay their fair share! Where is the equality?! </sarcasm>
It’s not a penalty it’s called underwriting.
It hits women and minorities hardest.
also, after men and women reach a certain age, health insurance goes up for men as they are more prone to get heart attacks and strokes, prostate cancer, etc.
Women have paps, mammograms and other expensive tests and conditions that men don’t have. Not that their isn’t conditions of their own, but not as frequent.
Life insurance costs more for men than women as women live longer.
Liberalism -
the constant compulsion to legislate away reality.
Seems the reporter also forgot that many states already mandate gender neutral rates. This usually isn’t much of a problem, until states mandate maternity coverage. Then it gets a bit hard to explain to a 22 year old male that they have to pay 35% more for “maternity”.
I think that the differences that work against men are ok, because in this politically correct world, we’re supposed to be sympathetic to women vs. men, minorities vs. white people, the poor vs. wealthier people, etc.
So, the liberal/politically correct crowd think it’s okay for teenage boys to pay more for car insurance, because as a group they have more accidents and insurance claims. But if women a a group have more insurance claims for health issues, that must be due to society’s bias against women.
Me old dad gets his health insurance relatively cheap, all things considered, because he’s a dairy farmer. Dairy farmers in the rural Northeast don’t pay much for insurance ‘cause they’re almost always too far behind to go to the doctor for anything.
I use far less health care than my husband.
My twins, who are 14, have been peppering me with questions about politics in the past few days--election talk is everywhere at school and they're frustrated at the ignorance of most of their classmates.
When I give them the explanation behind things-it makes perfect sense to them. I also explained why it's easier to fall into the liberal camp without really trying--explaining the concepts takes time and mental effort, not a whole lot, mind you, but much more than the 30 seconds it takes to spew:
"JOHN MCCAIN AND SARAH PALIN HATE WOMEN BECAUSE THEY WANT WOMEN TO PAY MORE FOR HEALTH INSURANCE THAN MEN!!!"
I have a 3 yr old that understands politics better than her grandmother.
The new findings, which are not easily explained away....if you are an idiot Poetry major from Dartmouth who doesn’t understand mathematics or business, and is too stupid to consider that insurance is a cost shifting mechanism which does not magically equalize all all costs for all consumers because you got a Journalism degree at Columbia and assume that all costs for all goods and services should be shifted to rich white men....but are otherwise so obvious and just that nobody other than idiots at the New York Times would even consider this pricing mechanism to require “explaining away.”
Congratulations. You are a sample of 1. I know a stunt pilot who is not dead, yet he pays more for life insurance than I do.
jas3
My favorite anti-liberal rant:
What are you, some spoiled brat college grad who suckled from the Great and Generous Parental Teat until you were convinced that work was for the common folk?
Some faux-educated liberal twit whose opinions are based on the LSD-inspired ravings of aged sixties-era hippies?
Some dreadlocked middle-class white boy who’s desperately trying to identify with the “oppressed masses” out of guilt at having been born to THE MAN?
Some alternate-lifestyle gimme-my-rights protester-of-everything who repaints their sign every weekend for another bout of EVERYONE’S WRONG EXCEPT ME?
Or are you French?
Honestly, I’d have more respect for you if you were French.
Thank you. I do appreciate it.
in my state they dealt with the disparity in car insurance rates between young boys and girls by requiring insurers to become “gender neutral”....which basically just means they jacked the girls’ rates up to equal the boys and kept the additional money.
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