On Monday the Colorado Senate voted to join several other states in seeking to ban gender discrimination in insurance rates.  (HB09-1224 Rep. Sue Schafer & Sen. Morgan Carroll).  The National Women’s Law Center recently released a comprehensive study documenting pervasive and significant discrimination against women in insurance rates.  The bill will likely be debated by the full Senate on Friday.

Colorado was the 2nd state to recognize women’s right to vote in 1893 and leads the nation with the number of women elected to the state legislature (40%), yet many are surprised to learn gender discrimination in insurance rates remains legal in Colorado.

• Women earn $0.78 on the dollar for every $1.00 men earn yet pay 30 – 40% more in individual health insurance plans, despite the fact that maternity coverage is not included in those plans.
• Federal law has prohibited gender discrimination in employer-provided health insurance since the Civil Rights Act 1964 but that does not protect those who must purchase on the individual health market.
• Colorado acted to prohibited race and ethnicity discrimination in ratings, but not gender.
• More than 130,000 women in Colorado between ages 19 – 64 received health insurance through the individual market in 2006 – 2007 and paid more for comparable coverage.
• This price discrimination increases the number of women (and their dependent children) who are uninsured.

Women who can not get insured here get pushed into public programs which we all pay for.  It is better public policy to end the discriminatory pricing and get more women covered through private insurance.

While the insurance industry opposes the measure, it has garnered support from:

Colorado Women’s Bar Association
AARP
Colorado Consumer Health Initiative
National Women’s Law Center
Denver Women’s Commission
9 to 5, National Association of Working Women- Colorado
Women’s Lobby of Colorado
Planned Parenthood of Colorado
National Council of Jewish Women
NARAL
Bell Policy Center
Insurance Commissioner Marcy Morrison

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 5:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.