The National Women’s Law Center has released a new report, “Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women,†and is hosting a webinar on Thursday, Oct. 16, to discuss the findings. Register here.
The majority of women (and men) are covered either by their employers or through Medicare or Medicaid. But as Lisa Codispoti, NWLC senior advisor, and Brigette Courtot, policy analyst, explain on the NWLC blog, women seeking insurance on the open market face numerous obstacles:
The barriers include being rejected for coverage for reasons that are relevant to women, being charged more than men for the exact same coverage, and experiencing great difficulty in finding affordable health coverage that includes comprehensive maternity care.
There are many federal laws that protect women who get their health insurance through their employer. Those federal protections simply don’t apply when you try to buy coverage in the individual insurance market.
Insurers can reject applicants for a variety of reasons -– many very relevant to women. For example, a woman can be rejected simply because she had a Caesarean section (in 2005, 30% of all births were by C-section). In nine states and the District of Columbia, it is still legal to be rejected for coverage because you are a survivor of domestic violence.
Emphasis mine — that fact is beyond infuriating.
Read more of this article here:
http://www.ourbodiesourblog.org/blog/2008/10/insurance-obstacles-for-wom...
