Trick or…

Posted by Liz on Oct 31, 2008 in Uncategorized | 4 comments

Today’s Halloween! A wonderful day to eat candy, admire costumes, and… bitch about the shaft that women are getting when it comes to healthcare premiums?

Okay, guess that you didn’t have that particular goal in mind today. But I do have a rant so I’m going to go there in the spirit of goblins and witches and spirits, oh my. Because what’s Halloween without a good-spirited spook?

I read an article yesterday describing the large disparities in health insurance payments between the genders. In fact, across the board, women are being forced to pay higher premiums, sometimes as much as a third more than men of the same age. The reason why? Insurers say that women use healthcare more, especially during childbearing years. But the rub? Most of these policies don’t cover maternal care and in fact, charge extra for that coverage.

As we grow older, insurance rates tend to rise. Clearly, the majority of older people require more visits to the doctor, more medications and more procedures. But this means that the disparity only continues to grow, even though theoretically, men and women are both using healthcare services, perhaps in equal numbers.

I am not an expert in this area nor do I have any solutions. But I wonder when the gender gap is going to be bridged?

Any thoughts, suggestions or tricks up your sleeve to solve this problem? BTW…this post is cross-posted on Bitchybetty.org, a great site for supporting your rants and bitches. If you haven’t visited BitchyBetty or another fav, Bitchbuzz, do stop by and support those sites!