Humana, UnitedHealth, Aetna, WellPoint Argue for Universal Health Care

Well, they’re not intentionally arguing for universal health care, but their handling of individual health insurance policies are making the argument for them. According to the New York Times, all of them charge women significantly more than menfor individual health insurance policies providing identical coverage. This has become a big deal, because so many people have lost their jobs which provided group health insurance and are now looking for individual policies.

Civil rights laws that apply to employers prevent sex discrimination and, thus, prevent employers and their insurance companies from charging higher premiums to female employees than to male employees for the same benefits. When you’re unemployed, these laws don’t apply to you.

It’s not uncommon for Humana to charge a woman for a individual policy 31-32% more than it charges a man for the same policy. The difference charged by WellPoint is anywhere between 38% and 49%, depending on the person’s age. Why do they do that?

According to the insurance companies’ claims experience, women use medical services more than men. They are more likely to visit doctors, to get regular checkups, to take prescription medications, and to have chronic illnesses. When you throw in the cost of childbirth, the difference in cost is off the charts. And it’s not just the cost of giving birth. Bearing children increases other health risks later in life, such as urinary incontinence.

According to health insurance data, if maternity care is included as a benefit in individual policies (and it’s not in some individual policies), it drives the cost up for everybody. If premiums for individual policies were equalized, women might pay less, but the rates would go up for men. In a statement evincing a highly stereotypical analysis of the problem, a female insurance executive defends what the insurance companies are doing this way: “Under the age of 55, women tend to be higher utilizers of health care than men. I am more conscious of my health than my husband,who will avoid going to the doctor at all costs.”

Women’s advocacy groups have raised concerns about these dipartities, and Congress is beginning to question the justification for them. It’s likely that these concerns will also bubble up in the debate over universal health care. The subject of universal health care is often thought to impact primarily the traditinal poor. Since not a day  goes by any more without the announcement of thousands more layoffs, the subject is beginning to impact a growing number of people who used to have group health insurance but don’t anymore. Although these laid off workers are entitled to COBRA continuation coverage of the group plan for 18 months, the premiums for COBRA are often too expensive.

I’m not sure anyone thought that gender discrimination would impact the universal health care debate, but it just might. As one female member of Congress observed, if men could have babies, this issue would be taken care of in short order.