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MSN: Health care fight becomes a battle of the sexes
Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2009-10-28 18:51
Article here. Excerpt:
'The Pennsylvania home health care company Linda Bettinazzi runs is charged about $6,800 per worker for health insurance – $2,000 more than the national average for single coverage. One reason: nearly every one of her 175 employees is a woman.
Insurers say women under the age of 55 cost more to cover because they use more health services, and not just for maternal and infant care. But Bettinazzi, the president and CEO of Visiting Nurse Association of Indiana County, believes there's something inherently wrong in charging her company more because it hires a lot of women.
...
Gender rating is the norm today, part of a complex formula of risk factors — including health history and age — insurers say has been necessary to fairly price policies. But advocacy groups for women argue that charging more for women than men is discriminatory and should be illegal.'
OK, so why aren't they complaining that men under 25 get charged more for car insurance on average than women under 25, all other factors being equal? Same thing, different sexes. And just how does the health carriers' claim that women under 55 use more health care resources than men in the same age group jibe with the feminist assertion that women are getting the short end of the stick in terms of access to health care? Answer: It doesn't.
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Comments
She looks like Judi Dench
For a second, I thought they had put the wrong picture up (her pic is about 6/10 of the way down the page).
Now look at Dame Judith:
http://www.allposters.com/-st/Judi-Dench-Posters_c66587_.htm
Amazing, huh? They could be twins.
Matt
Judi Dench? Thats cruel! :)
"LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE IT'S COMPLETELY INANE
PROFOUNDLY PROFANE AND IT DRIVES ME INSANE"
Poor wymynfolk
This all comes down to a single cause: women cost more to insure because they spend more on health care. The insurers consider the likelihood of a claim when they insure someone. The higher the likelihood of a claim, the higher the premium. The principle applies to all insurance.
There is absolutely no discrimination involved--it's pure numbers. Women are treated just like everyone else--which, of course, means they are discriminated against.
If prices for women are lowered, then prices for men will go up. But if we're going to do that for health insurance, we must also do it for auto and life insurance, which means rates for women will go up. There ain't no free lunch.
The owner laments that women earn less than men. That's probably why she hires so many women--they're cheaper (except for insurance). Maybe her employees should sue for wage discrimination.
Stately
Actually I like how Dame Judith looks. Of course she is not in the flower of youth but hey, we all get older. Despite her occasional femwit-written character appearances in movies from time to time (eg: first time she appeared as "M" she was a nasty misandrist tooling on ol' 007), I have yet to hear her say anything misandrist on her own time. Did you ever see her in "As Time Goes By", the BBC comedy series? Loved her in it. She's a really good actress, no doubt about it, hence the title she got from HM QE II. And, classy to boot. They just aren't making 'em like that no more.
007
Agreed, Dench is a good actress. However, if my dog looked like Judi Dench I'd shave his ass and make him walk backwards.
As for 007:
No one can match Roger Moore!
Moonraker & Live and Let Die.
For pensions men used to get
For pensions men used to get higher monthly benefits as a result of actuarial conversion which took into account their shorter life spans. The feminists thought that was discriminatory so "unisex" tables were developed which gives men and women the same monthly benefits...which, of course, means men get smaller benefits in the aggregate.
I already answered this once
Nothing personal, but the analogy between a young man's auto insurance and a woman's health insurance is a poor one. Driving an auto is something that is under your control, whereas there are an infinite number of happenstances that someone's health can suffer (regardless of how much prevention is emphasized). You can pick nits and say 'it is a woman's choice to get pregnant' or 'it is not a young man's fault if someone else hits him' or something, but the general picture is as I have indicated. Besides, people will pick nits with your nits, for example they will say, "well, much of the time the driver could have done something to avoid the accident", or "so what - so women should not be allowed to get pregnant?!!", and then the argument would devolve from there.
I'm not saying it's not okay to charge women more for health insurance, I'm just pointing out the bad analogy. Please do not use that argument in any official or quasi-official forums!
-ax
p.s.
The only reason actors like Dench and Laurn Bacall, and Helen Miren, still have jobs is because of society's desire to "big up" women. Although part of that is women in general being in denial about turning into mummies, so they prop up the old ladies.
-ax
Really? There are exists a finite number of things that cause..
....vehicular accidents? Perhaps, but whatever that finite number is, it has not yet been reached.
I very much do not agree that a 16 year old boy pays more for insurance then a 16 year old girl because the boy is a boy and the girl is a girl.
The point is that insurance is based on probability. The insurance company argues that the probability of the 16 year old boy getting in an accident is higher then that of the 16 year old girl. Neither has any real driving record to substantiate the claim that the boy is higher risk, but he still pays more.
Same with health. A healthy male and a healthy female may remain so, but the insurance company says the female is more likely to require some form of costly health care. Maybe this woman is infertile, maybe she;s a health nut and will never make a claim in her life, she still pays more because the probability is higher.
To say males paying more for auto insurance because males control their driving habits and thus the claims males make are their own damn fault and therefore justified, is EXACTLY the same as claiming women paying more for health insurance is justified because woman can choose weather or not to make a claim for medical services when they are sick.
Plus, I think the insurance companies point for charging women more is MUCH closer to their reasoning for charging young men more for auto insurance then you might think. You see, there are very few gender specific diseases, and males and females tend to be equally susceptible to most major illnesses - viruses are pretty non-discriminatory things, they don't give a fuck what gender the host is. So, just as young men CHOOSING to drive recklessly resulting in more claims, women CHOOSE to make many more frivolous claims against their health insurance for minor things that men choose to handle themselves. Wemon don't pay more for major disease treatments, thye pay more for petty claims that they need not make in the first place