GENDER PARITY is the latest compromise from the health insurance industry trying to convince lawmakers to not include a new public health-insurance plan in the enormous health-care overhaul Congress is preparing.
WOMEN PAY MORE FOR HEALTH INSURANCE
Well, they must be desperate to actually offer equality for women when they buy coverage identical to men. Did you know women are charged higher rates for health insurance coverage than what the health insurance industry charges men? In the future, the industry agreed that it will allow men to birth the babies and they'll pay for it.
Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (D) introduced legislation recently which would prevent insurers from charging women more than men, when women purchase coverage on the individual insurance market.
Karen Ignagni, a woman, and believe-it-or-not, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, told lawmakers she doesn't think gender should factor into women's rates when they're buying individual policies, reports The Wall Street Journal. When did the boys vote her in as president, just in time to testify? They knew a woman would be more believable.
WHO IS REALLY MORE EXPENSIVE?
An argument for why women's insurance costs are higher -- it is mostly women who are seen in medical waiting rooms. Okay, let's talk. Pregnancy issues aside, it is true that men seek medical care less than women. Men are more often "in denial" and won't admit to health problems and the need for help.
And, despite the machismo myth, men are more frightened of the big, bad doctor than women. And since women see a physician more often, serious illnesses are caught early when care is both more successful AND less expensive. Besides, physicians have long ordered more expensive testing for men than women. The annual executive physical, for example, often costs many thousands of dollars.
For reasons such as these, many argue that there is no good justification for higher insurance rates for women since men cost more in the long run.
INSURANCE INDUSTRY ADMITS IT'S UNFAIR
Rather than a government plan as a check on their industry, health insurers are offering to accept stricter government rules they claim would produce a more fair marketplace. At least, they are admitting it is not fair now.
So, now that the health insurance industry has it's bollocks to the fire, excuse me President Ignagni, perhaps women will finally get parity -- in rates. Maybe it will dawn on lawmakers to bring up the subject of nonpayment of claims and pre-existing illness. Isn't it time to have insurance that follows us where ever we work and live? Now's the time to force the greedy bastards to stop making us go bankrupt in order to save a life.
TO READ "Life and Death Sexism: Fewer Girls & Women on Kidney Transplant List," CLICK HERE.
By Sharon McEachern
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