You might be surprised to learn that our health care system is rife with gender-oriented discriminatory practices such as, “gender rating, the exclusion of health care services that only women need, and pre-existing-condition denials.” This is according to Marcia Greenberger of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) in her testimony before the Senate.

NWLC reports provide a lot of insight on this topic. Their research includes analyzing the most popular individual insurance plans by state. Some of the interesting findings include:

• 95% charge women more for the exact same coverage
• In 60% of plans, a 40-year old non-smoking female will actually pay more for the same policy than a 40-year old smoking male
• Some women in their mid-20s have been charged 80% more than men of the same age even when their plan excluded maternity coverage
• Employer plans are not off the hook either: This same report found that most states allow insurance companies to charge employers more for female employees than males
• Some states still allow insurers to reject a woman’s application for health insurance if she’s been a victim of domestic violence
• A higher proportion of women are either uninsured or underinsured
• Family health insurance premiums increased by more than 100% whereas average wages increased by only 34%

Insurance companies justify charging women more because women go to the doctor more often than men. “While some do charge men more from ages 55 to 65, at which point Medicare kicks in, others continue to charge women more or just give very small price breaks,” Greenberger says.

You may think that prenatal care is also a large part of the extra charges for women. But the majority of the individual plans don’t even include maternity care as part of the coverage. Greenberger is asking that health care reform include mandatory coverage for maternity care, contraception, Pap smears, and protection from gender rating. Right now only 12 states include this whereas many states include protection from being rated on race, national origin, or religion. There is no guarantee that these central tenets of care for women will be included in health care reform.