In an article published this week in the New York Times titled “Women Buying Health Policies Pay a Penalty,” notes that recent data suggests that women buying individual insurance plans pay significantly more than men.  The research showed that women paid hundreds of dollars more per year for insurance coverage on the open market as compared to male counterparts of the same age.  The reason insurance companies give is that health care for women costs more because women bear children.  The article does, however, point out that insurance plans for women that do not include maternity coverage are still more expensive.

The health care industry justifies these premium disparities based on their actuarial experience that care provided to women (read: OB/GYN care) costs more.  This may be true in the sense that increased costs of care are more directly associated with female gender statistically speaking.  However, costs of care that are associated with male gender are probably less numerically obvious.  As a result, the industry may not be analyzing coverage issues for men to the same degree to determine appropriate costs for providing insurance coverage to men.  The justification that women cost more because of their anatomy is problematic in a system that also covers Viagra for men but not birth control pills for women.   While I do believe that such disparities are civil rights issues, the implications of these findings have a direct relationship to the health care reform proposals of our presidential candidates.

Consider these findings in the context of McCain’s proposal which supports the end of employer-based group plans and advocates for Americans to purchase their own individual insurance plans. Families of four will have a $5,000 tax credit with which to purchase a plan that typically costs $12,000 per year and lose their tax exemption for benefits paid by their employer. If you are a woman or have young women in your family you need to purchase coverage for, expect to pay hundreds of dollars more per year than your neighbor with two sons.   In a plan that has already been criticized for potentially decreasing the ability of many families to afford coverage in the individual insurance market, this plan places women at an even greater disadvantage financially.   Those families that find paying for health insurance coverage in the system proposed by McCain is not financially viable could be predominantly female households.  Is this fair and just?  Is this the change and progress we need in reforming health care?  Nurses For Change believes that health care needs to be more affordable and accessable to all Americans, and those Americans with vaginas should not be systematically penalized on the basis of their biology.