In recent months we’ve learned that health insurance companies frequently charge women more than men for health insurance.  But they aren’t the only ones.  State High Risk plans that are designed to cover people who have ‘pre-existing conditions’ or for other reasons cannot obtain insurance in some case also discriminate.

First the good news, some states don’t discriminate.  Among them–Montana, Alaska and Minnesota.  Among those that do, the rates are all over the place.  For comparison’s sake, I arbitrarily looked at rates for 33 year olds with $1000 deductibles.  In Kentucky, a woman would pay $501, a man $249.  In Connecticut a woman pays $664, a man $393.  And most insidious (albeit the cheapest of the ones I compared) in Arkansas, a non-smoking woman pays $267 and a man who smokes pays only $247.

This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list and I have no idea how or if this is handled in the small print of the voluminous healthcare bill that may or may not be passed this weekend.  But I am just speechless that the problem of gender discrimination has not been limited to private companies but has also been perpetrated by state-run programs.  The women of America are  due a major rebate.  Call it the Gender Discrimination Insurance Reparations Act of 2009.

Data quoted above came from state plans found via the Council for Affordable Health Insurance.