Women Pay 50 Percent More

Being a woman is expensive—in the case of health insurance, 50 percent more expensive than being a man. Gender-rating—the practice of charging women more for health insurance—occurs because women, particularly those under age 50, go to the doctor more than men. Even women who don't smoke are often charged more than men who light up. There are other inequities as well, accounts of women denied insurance coverage because of cesarean sections or past domestic violence. One Colorado woman was told she had to get sterilized in order to qualify for insurance. "My anger is mostly that insurance companies view having a baby as a medical complication that costs them money," she said. The insurance industry says that current health-care reform proposals, which would ban gender-rating, a prohibition already in place in 11 states, and require maternity coverage, raise the cost of insurance for everyone else.