http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/stillnowheretoturn.pdf
Insurance Companies Treat Women Like a Pre~Existing Condition.
If you click on this top referring link, it will show you that not only is it domestic violence, but many other things that will 'up' your insurance if you are a woman.
In many states, insurance companies can still discriminate on the basis of gender -- charging women higher premiums than men simply because of their gender or denying coverage because of so-called "pre-existing conditions" like being pregnant, experiencing a prior pregnancy complication, or having undergone a C-section. And health plans in the individual market often do not cover basic maternity care.
President Obama's proposal for health insurance reform would end the days of discrimination based on gender. Insurance companies would be banned from denying coverage because of a pre-existing condition and would have to cover preventative care like mammograms.
For America's women and families, the time is now for health insurance reform.
I had previously posted "Domestic Violence Anyone?" click and many of you were appropriately outraged.
Back in 2006, Ten Republican senators voted against the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act, an act that would have “forced insurance companies to stop ignoring state laws that provided protection for victims of domestic violence, specifically when it came to denying them insurance coverage.”
The man who beat her is not deemed “high risk” or denied access to health insurance, and yet, he is the one raising the costs of health care.
But this goes way further than domestic violence; pointing out many differences between insurance plans from every state, including the District of Columbia.
Women continue to face unfair and discriminatory practices in the health insurance system, in both the individual and the group health insurance markets. The health insurance inequities described in NWLC’s 2008 Nowhere to Turn report remain evident one year later, and in some instances have become even more pronounced.
Women are charged more for coverage simply because they are women, and
insurers often exclude coverage for services that only women need, like maternity care.
In the health insurance system, being a woman amounts to being treated like a “pre-existing condition.”
Health reform holds the promise of making fair and affordable health insurance available to millions of women who need it.
{Our} country is closer than ever before to realizing this goal, but the debate over the
scope of insurance market reforms and various other provisions to ensure equitable coverage is far from over.
Specifically, to protect women and their families, health care reform must:
- Eliminate unfair and discriminatory practices, such as gender rating, by applying reforms broadly across the individual market and for all groups of all sizes.
- Prohibit insurers from rejecting applicants or excluding coverage for “pre-existing conditions.”
- Ensure that essential health services such as maternity care are included in all health insurance policies.
- Gender rating remains rampant in the individual health insurance market and among best-selling health plans. NWLC examined the best-selling plans (generally the top 10) in each state capital and found that 95% practice gender rating, compared to 93% of such plans in 2008.
- Using the same random sampling methods as in 2008, NWLC found even more egregious examples of gender rating among 25-year-olds in 2009. At this age, women are charged up to 84% more than men for individual health plans that exclude maternity coverage.
- Despite the bleak landscape, two states made improvements since the Center issued its Nowhere to Turn report in 2008. In April 2009, Arkansas passed a law expressly prohibiting health insurance companies from using a woman’s status as a domestic violence survivor to deny coverage, and in October 2009, California became the eleventh state to ban gender rating in the individual health insurance market.
- New research revealed that, in most states, it is common for a female non-smoker to be charged more than a male smoker in the individual insurance market simply because she is a woman:
- More than 60% of best-selling plans charge a 40-year-old woman who doesn’t smoke more than a 40-year-old man who does.
- Among those plans that charge female non-smokers more, the difference in premiums varies widely.
- Across the country, women who do not smoke are charged between 1% more (in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) and 63% more (in Little Rock, Arkansas) than men who smoke.
- Maternity coverage remains largely unavailable in the individual market, with virtually no improvement in access. In 2009, 13% of the health plans available to a 30-year-old woman across the country provide maternity coverage, compared to 12% in 2008.
- New research revealed the extent to which gender rating can also occur in the group health insurance market, where insurance companies are allowed to determine premiums based on the number of women a business employs, meaning that predominately female workforces— such as in child care centers, physician’s offices, or nonprofits—end up paying significantly more for coverage.
- Just fifteen states have laws protecting group health plans from gender rating, but the protections are limited to small groups—defined by these states as groups with 50 or fewer members.
- Moderate-sized and larger groups are subject to gender rating in all states except Montana, which bans gender rating across all health insurance markets and for groups of all sizes.
Additionally, Women denied health insurance for 'pre-existing conditions' of pregnancy, rape click
As if it weren’t bad enough that military contractors in Iraq are raping their female co-workers with impunity, there is now substantial anecdotal evidence that US women are being denied health coverage because of “pre-existing conditions” resulting from rape, as well as statistical proof that the health insurance industry regularly discriminates against women.
The National Women’s Law Center has released new research indicating that women are charged as much as 48% more than men for individual insurance, and that women are routinely denied coverage for such so-called pre-existing conditions as having had a C-section or survived domestic abuse. As Peggy Robertson testified recently to Congress, because she had had a C-section, her insurance company declined to cover her at all unless she agreed to be sterilized (see video below).
Susan Pisano, spokesperson for the insurance industry’s largest trade group, America’s Health Insurance Plans, insisted that rape survivors are not targets of discrimination, but acknowledged that anti-HIV treatment and PTSD would be likely “factors” in the decision to deny coverage.
Mental health care consultant Jim Wrich countered that denials of therapy for rape survivors are “absolutely routine” and that “the default position is to reject care” for women who have been assaulted.
Combined with the news that at least one insurance provider canceled a certain type of health plan for all of New York state in order to legally deny coverage to one individual, this evidence of institutionalized discrimination against women—especially the women most in need of treatment—makes a great case for the abolition of the private insurance industry altogether and its replacement by a single-payer system.
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I couldn't agree more.
I also found where children are being denied coverage because they are "too fat" as is the case with a 4 month old who weighs 17 pounds. Click. Then there are denials for babies being too small...
Or how about the woman who has been denied fertility treatment on the NHS because her husband has children from a previous relationship. Click.
The Top 8 Worst Health Insurance Denial Cases (written by an insurance company no less).
Gosh I am disgusted and tired now...
XOXO
Me
