Bye-bye gender rating in health insurance – can we say hello to the ERA?

The health care law is working for women. But for many reasons women have learned that we can’t breathe easy when it comes to access to health care.  As we’ve seen recently in the debate over access to birth control, the promise of expanded access to affordable health care for women only comes with the force of law behind it.

The Affordable Care Act took on gender rating inequality. Clearly related to the health and well-being of over half the population.

Women spend $1 billion more annually on their health insurance premiums than they would if they were men because of gender rating, according to a recent report by the National Women’s Law Center. The report shows that in states that have not banned gender rating, more than 90 percent of the best-selling health plans charge women more than men. One plan even charges 25-year-old women 85% more than men.

A provision in the Affordable Care Act eliminates gender rating, or charging women more because they’re women.  In late November, Health and Human Services released the new regulations that prohibit insurers from charging women a higher premium than men. These regulations go into effect in 2014. The health law permits insurers to vary premiums based on four factors: individual vs. family enrollment, age, where the insured people live and tobacco use.

Women have been paying more for health insurance and make less money because of the gender pay gap, which is closing at glacial speed.  The Institute for Women’s Policy Research reports that in 2010, female full-time workers made only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of 23 percent.

This new law exists to stop the discriminatory practice that currently exists when women purchase health insurance. But laws can be changed or overturned out of existence. And many existing laws don’t go far enough. The passage of the Equal Right Amendment is what is needed to finally provide women with their rightful place in our society – fully equal under the law. Studies show that improving the condition of women raises the standard of living for the community as a whole. Now that’s good public health policy.

Barbara Glickstein is co-director of the Center for Health, Media and Policy at Hunter College.

[caption id="attachment_5418" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Photocredit: Nat'l Women

The Affordable Care Act is Personal

CHMP Senior Fellow Charmaine Ruddock, MS directs Bronx Health REACH, a coalition of 50 community and faith-based organizations, funded by the Centers for Disease Control’s REACH 2010 Initiative to address racial and ethnic health disparities.  

Exactly a month ago, like millions of Americans, I cheered ecstatically as I watched the election results come in and realized that Barack Obama had won re-election. His re-election mattered to me on so many fronts but none more than the fact that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was now a permanent fixture of the American social contract.  As a health advocate, I knew that many of the uninsured all over this country would finally get access to health care and medical services. I knew that through the Prevention and Public Health Fund and its Community Transformation provision in the ACA there will be opportunities afforded to address many of the underlying causes of poor health – lack of access to healthy food, inadequate opportunities for physical activity in too many neighborhoods and communities. With these provisions, there will now be an added focus on efforts to improve the design of neighborhoods, their streets, and their housing to encourage active living by their residents; there will be renewed emphasis on employee wellness and school based childhood obesity prevention.

There are a myriad other things that the Affordable Care Act will do to promote the health of all Americans that I appreciate as part of the work I do every day but the Affordable Care Act and its permanence is important to me on a personal level as well.  When my daughter started medical school a few months ago and we were discussing the financing of this education, when we got to the cost of health insurance I was able to tell her that that was a cost she would not have to add to her medical school costs, at least not for the next two years.  You see, with the provision in the ACA that allows children to be covered on their parents’ health plan until they are twenty six, she will be covered on my health plan, thus shaving off approximately $10,000 off her medical school cost.  That’s $10,000 plus interest which would accrue on the student loan paying for part of this education.  So, on behalf of my daughter and her future, I say, “Thank you, President Obama”.

Charmaine Ruddock, MS

CHMP Senior Fellow Charmaine Ruddock, MS directs Bronx