Why It’s Too Early to Celebrate Health Care Reform
Photo by parttake via photobucket
NOW explains that the health care bill contains a sweeping anti-abortion provision and ultimately achieves the same outcome as the infamous Stupak-Pitts Amendment, namely the likely elimination of all private as well as public insurance coverage for abortion. It also imposes “a bizarre requirement” on insurance plan enrollees who buy coverage through the health insurance exchanges to write two monthly checks (one for an abortion care rider and one for all other health care), and requires that employers write two separate checks for each of their employees requesting the abortion rider.
Also, the bill permits age-rating, the practice of imposing higher premiums on older people. This practice has a disproportionate impact on women, whose incomes and savings are lower due to a lifetime of systematic wage discrimination. And the bill permits gender-rating, the practice of charging women higher premiums simply because they are women. Although gender-rating has reportedly been prohibited, NOW clarifies that this is only true in the individual and small-group markets. Larger group plans (more than 100 employees) sold through the exchanges will be permitted to discriminate against women, which will especially harm female-dominated workplaces.
