logo

Affordable Care Act & Women's Health: The End of Gender Rating?

image
Created: 27 March, 2012
Updated: 13 October, 2022
2 min read

[Update - US Department of Health and Human Services website is now healthcare.gov]

The Affordable Care Act, before the Supreme Court this week, includes partial elimination for “gender rating”, a practice that costs women $1 billion a year. According to statistics, women between the ages of 19 to 55 tend to use more health care services than men of the same age. They are more likely to visit doctors for regular checkups, have certain chronic illnesses and take prescription drugs.

Because of this, women have long paid higher prices for health coverage than their male counterparts. According to healthreform.gov, a website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a 22 year old woman can be charged one and a half times the premium of a 22 year old man in the individual insurance market. More than half of American women reported delaying or avoiding needed care because of cost, compared with 39% of men who reported the same.

The Affordable Care Act or ACA will prohibit certain cases of gender rating, namely for individuals seeking medical coverage and employers with fewer than 100 employees. Supporters of the ACA claim that comprehensive health care coverage will level the playing field, making health care costs available and affordable for all women. Fourteen states have begun measures to ban gender rating without the implementation of the ACA.

Since women are less likely to get health insurance through their work than men, the ban on gender rating for individuals is important. Many states currently allow insurance companies to take an individual's gender into account when calculating premiums. Furthermore, a survey by the National Women’s Law Center found that the vast majority of insurance policies on the individual market did not cover maternity care. Under the ACA, maternity care will be considered an essential health benefit that plans will be required to cover. Pregnancy will no longer be considered a “pre-existing condition” under the act.

Abortion has been one of the major issues during the health care reform debates. Insurance coverage of abortion at the federal level has not been banned, however the ACA explicitly allows states to ban private insurance coverage of abortion. Currently 14 states (Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia) have laws prohibiting the coverage of abortion in state insurance exchanges to the ACA. According to the NWLC, “Since most insurance plans cover abortion, bans on insurance coverage of abortion represent a radical departure from the status quo that will result in women losing benefits they currently have.”

Health care equality for women is an issue that requires reform no matter what the decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Whether or not the act is a necessary component to promoting these changes is yet to be seen.

Latest articles

votes
Wyoming Purges Nearly 30% of Its Voters from Registration Rolls
It is not uncommon for a state to clean out its voter rolls every couple of years -- especially to r...
27 March, 2024
-
1 min read
ballot box
The Next Big Win in Better Election Reform Could Come Where Voters Least Expect
Idaho isn't a state that gets much attention when people talk about politics in the US. However, this could change in 2024 if Idahoans for Open Primaries and their allies are successful with their proposed initiative....
21 March, 2024
-
3 min read
Courts
Why Do We Accept Partisanship in Judicial Elections?
The AP headline reads, "Ohio primary: Open seat on state supreme court could flip partisan control." This immediately should raise a red flag for voters, and not because of who may benefit but over a question too often ignored....
19 March, 2024
-
9 min read
Nick Troiano
Virtual Discussion: The Primary Solution with Unite America's Nick Troiano
In the latest virtual discussion from Open Primaries, the group's president, John Opdycke, sat down ...
19 March, 2024
-
1 min read
Sinema
Sinema's Exit Could Be Bad News for Democrats -- Here's Why
To many, the 2024 presidential primary has been like the movie Titanic - overly long and ending in a disaster we all saw coming from the start. After months of campaigning and five televised primary debates, Americans are now faced with a rematch between two candidates polling shows a majority of them didn’t want....
19 March, 2024
-
7 min read