Finally, some good news for women. According to The New York Times, President Obama’s new health care reform legislation will make being a woman more affordable. For the past few months, House speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeated the mantra, “being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition.” So how will things change?
Companies selling individual health policies — for people who do not have group coverage through employers — will no longer be permitted to engage in “gender rating,” that is, charging women more than men for the same coverage, even for policies that do not include maternity care. The rationale was that women used the health care system more than men. But some companies charged women who did not smoke more than men who did, even though smokers have more risks. The differences in premiums, from 4 percent to 48 percent, according to a 2008 analysis by the law center, can add up to hundreds of dollars a year.
In addition, individual policies will no longer be able to exclude maternity coverage, considered “an essential health benefit.” Companies are also banned from excluded women who have had Caesarean sections or been victims of domestic violence. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski said in a statement: “One of my hearings revealed that a woman was denied coverage because she had a baby with a medically mandated C-section. When she tried to get insurance coverage with another company, she was told she had to be sterilized in order to get health insurance. That will never, ever happen again because of what we did here with health care reform.”
The only disappointment is that some of these changes won’t take effect until 2014. Still, it’s a huge win in the battle for fair health care!
