For all the men complaining about "paying for women's birth control."
Health-care law to end gender rating
A woman who buys her own health insurance in Ohio can count on paying more than a man for the same coverage, because of a discriminatory practice called gender rating. For many women, this can put affordable, comprehensive coverage out of reach.
President Obama's health-care law will ban such practices once it is fully implemented, but until then they remain a widespread problem.
In Ohio, 100 percent of the best-selling individual health insurance plans practice gender rating, and 100 percent exclude maternity coverage.
One plan charges a 40-year-old woman $371 more in annual premiums than a 40-year-old man for the same coverage. Another charges $669 more.
Nationwide, the effect of these discrepancies can be staggering. A new analysis by the National Women's Law Center finds that gender rating costs women approximately $1 billion a year.
Insurance companies are aware of the problem, but have not voluntarily taken steps to eliminate it. That's why provisions of the health-care law that will roll out in 2014 prohibit gender rating in the individual insurance market, require all plans on the individual market to provide maternity coverage, and prohibit sex discrimination in health plans from insurance companies that receive federal funds.
The practice of gender rating is not going away by itself. This national problem demands a national solution. We have one in the health-care law.
Marcia Greenberger
Co-President National Women's Law Center Washington, D.C.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Letters-.../31/Health-care-law-to-end-gender-rating.html
