One of the many requirements of the Affordable Care Act
By Michelle Andrews, Kaiser Health News
Any woman who has bought health insurance on her own probably didn’t find herself humming the old show tune, “I Enjoy Being a Girl.” That’s because more than 90 percent of individual plans charge women higher premiums than men for the same coverage, a practice known as gender rating.
Women spend $1 billion more annually on their health insurance premiums than they would if they were men because of gender rating, according to a recent report by the National Women’s Law Center.
Under the health care overhaul, the practice is banned starting in 2014. But according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s April health tracking poll, only 35 percent of people are aware of this fact. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)