Follow up to What Women Want: Equal Benefits for Equal Premiums
Jim Guest from Consumer's Union: "Common health needs specific to women too often are not covered under current health insurance practices. We heard from numerous women who found themselves with coverage delayed or denied because of very common health needs, such as benign fibroids, previous fertility treatments, pregnancies and the like."
Marcia Greenberger, president of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), discussed the results of a report issued by NWLC: Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women, saying, "The [NWLC] investigated two phenomena: the 'gender gap' the difference in premiums charged to female and male applicants of the same age and health status in samples from each state and the District of Columbia … and the availability and affordability of coverage for maternity care across the country…Based on this research, NWLC found that the individual insurance market is a very difficult place for women to buy health coverage. Insurance companies can refuse to sell women coverage altogether due to a history of any health problems whatsoever, or charge women higher premiums based on factors that include gender, age and health status. This coverage is often very costly and limited in scope, and it fails to meet women’s needs. In short, women face too many obstacles obtaining comprehensive, affordable health coverage in the individual market simply because they are women."
Ms. Greenberger explained, "Under a practice known as gender rating, insurance companies are permitted in most states to charge men and women different premiums. This costly practice often results in wide variations in rates charged to women and men for the same coverage…In the vast majority of states, individual market insurers can use evidence of a ‘pre-existing’ condition to deny coverage or exclude important health benefits. Simply being pregnant or having had a Cesarean section is grounds enough for insurance companies to reject a woman’s application…After reviewing over 3,500 policies available to women across the nation in 2008, NWLC found that the vast majority of individual market health insurance policies do not cover maternity care at all. Just 12 percent included comprehensive maternity coverage (i.e., coverage for pre- and post-natal visits, as well as labor and delivery, for both routine pregnancies and in case of complications) within the insurance policy."
During questions, Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) asked Ms. Robertson to reread a portion of a letter from the Golden Rule health insurance company in Colorado, which Ms. Robertson submitted with her testimony: "In order to consider coverage without a rider, we require that certain requirements be met. One requirement is that some form of sterilization has occurred since the C-section delivery." In response, Sen. Mikulski said, "That concept … put me on the edge of my chair … No one, no one in the United States, in order to get health insurance, should be coerced in sterilization. I find it offensive and I find it morally repugnant and I intend to do something about that."
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And read other The Source" testimony at Women's Policy Inc. Read More...