Health Insurance for Women - More Expensive?

Health Insurance for Women - Why is it different?

Insurance companies have always treated women differently from men. This is because their healthcare habits differ substantially in several ways. First of all, they have different health issues and their lifestyle can differ as well. In addition, women's attitude towards healthcare has also been known to vary significantly from men. Also, or perhaps as a consequence, their life expectancy is slightly higher too.

Because of these differences, health insurance companies place women in a separate risk goup. Health Insurance for women is therefore significantly at variance with that of men. In this article we examine the consequences of this variance as well as what can be done about it.

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Women's Health Insurance is more costly

Recent evidence has brought into view a startling statistic. Women's health insurance is substantially more expensive than that of men. While we know that women are differently built, one would expect that the reasons average out - meaning that some factors increase women's expenses, but others lower it. What we find is that women consistently pay well over 30% more than men for health care.

Doubtless this has led some women's organizations to flay the insurance sector. They claim this is equivalent to racial discrimination. Without going into the right or wrong of it, Insurance companies have their own reasons for creating this disparity. They claim that men cannot bear children and therefore costs of birth complications do not exist. Even without maternity coverage, many states require insurance companies to cover complications during birth.

Also, they claim that women are more serious about their health and are more likely to visit a doctor, driving up healthcare costs. With some insurance plans, women end up paying 50% more than men. Insurance companies claim that if they lower rates of women, the rates for men would go up.

What can be done about this?

Employer sponsored plans are specifically barred from having different rates for women even if they fall into a different risk category. Some states such as New York and Montana do not allow variable rates for women even in regular insurance policies. There is a lot of organized opposition to the higher rates for women in the insurance sector, and it's only a matter of time before real change comes along throughout the country. Till that time, not much can be done about it.