Women in Colorado who purchase insurance on the individual market currently pay up to 59 percent more than men for coverage that doesn't even include maternity care. Now, a group of agents and insurance company representatives in their state are trying to keep it that way.

The Colorado State Association of Health Underwriters plans to lobby against efforts to include maternity care in individual plans, in addition their efforts to keep "gender rating" legal, and you won't believe why: insurers are actually telling legislators that they're concerned about how this all might affect men.

State Sen. Morgan Carroll, a Democrat from Aurora, gives us a peek at what they're telling state legislators. "The insurance industry lobbied against the bill prohibiting gender discrimination," says Carroll. "They met with lawmakers and were able to convince a handful that the rate discrimination was: a) justified; b) its removal would drive up men's rates."

Justifying their stance on "gender rating" and maternity care, CSAHU spokesperson and lobbyist Cindy Sovine-Miller accused the Colorado legislators of being "[...] more about fairness than math." Funny, that's not what others say. "At our hearings this summer, the insurance industry provided no justifiable data or reason for their charging women from 9 percent to 50 percent more for the same policy," wrote Democratic State Rep. Sue Schafer of Wheat Ridge. "Even men who smoke are charged less than women who do not smoke. Just being female is considered a pre-existing condition."

And speaking of health care "math," we simply can't ignore "math" like this:

• 64 million women in America do not have adequate health insurance coverage.
• Gender discrimination results in women routinely being charged up to 48% more in premiums than men for the same coverage through the individual market.
• A recent poll shows that 86% of those polled favor requiring insurance companies to provide maternity care as part of basic coverage.

Another Colorado group, the Professional Independent Insurance Agents of Colorado (PIIAC), doesn't want to get all mucked up in the details. Instead, they're justifying their position on "gender rating" with a lesson on anatomy:

"The bottom line is this," said the group's executive VP Barbara Fidler. "As crude as it sounds, we women are more costly relative to our health care. Our plumbing -- I don't mean to sound crude -- the gender differences are clearly related to how we're different... I'm not saying that it's fair for women to be rated why they are. I think it's just important to understand."

If insurance lobbyists like CSAHU & PIIAC had their way, women Peggy Robertson would continue to be discriminated against for wanting to have more children. After deciding to stay home following the C-section birth of her second son, Peggy ventured to look for an independent health insurance plan. Instead of comprehensive coverage, Peggy's insurance company (a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group) offered her this little gem of advice: get sterilized--or you won't get coverage. Never mind the fact that over 30% of births in America are performed via C-section.

Once again, it's evident that when insurance companies win, women lose.

It's time to make sure our members of Congress hear their voices above those of the insurance lobbyists: http://action.seiu.org/page/speakout/peggy

A version of the Republican health care bill was leaked today, and it's underwhelming, to say the least. For starters, the draft bill completely ignores women's health care issues. In fact, there is not a single mention of "women" in the entire bill (and "woman" appears just once, in a passage about - surprise! - abortion). By comparison, The Affordable Health Care for America Act introduced by House Democrats has 101 mentions of "women" on 37 separate pages.

What are we supposed to think about all this? Are Republicans betting that insurance companies will fix the gender gap on their own? Will they magically start covering maternity care? Will they voluntarily stop treating rape and domestic violence as pre-existing conditions? Here are just a few other glaring omissions in this draft version of the GOP bill:

• Allows insurers to deny coverage due to "pre-existing conditions" (which, we've recently learned, range from underweight babies to rape and domestic violence victims)


• Allows insurers to withhold maternity coverage and follow-up visits for the baby's health


• Allows insurers to require limitless out-of-pocket costs, which have already resulted in sending millions of Americans into medical bankruptcy


• Allows insurers to continue the practice of "gender rating," whereby insurers often arbitrarily charge women up to 48% more than men for the same policies

The historic House health insurance reform bill was released yesterday, moving us ever closer to passing legislation guaranteeing quality, affordable health care for all Americans. The Affordable Health Care for America Act, which you can download and peruse at your leisure, lays out a lot of changes benefiting Americans across the board. But, one group that stands to gain the most from this reform is American women.

As we reported yesterday, Section 107 of the House Bill prohibits the classification of domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. And that's just the beginning:

Gender-rating made illegal: Insurance plans will no longer be able to charge women as much as 48% more than men for the same insurance coverage.

SEC. 213. INSURANCE RATING RULES.
(a) IN GENERAL.--The premium rate charged for a qualified health benefits plan that is health insurance coverage may not vary except as follows:
(1) LIMITED AGE VARIATION PERMITTED.--By age (within such age categories as the Commissioner shall specify) so long as the ratio of the highest such premium to the lowest such premium does not exceed the ratio of 2 to 1.
(2) BY AREA.--By premium rating area (as permitted by State insurance regulators or, in the case of Exchange-participating health benefits plans, as specified by the Commissioner in consultation with such regulators).
(3) BY FAMILY ENROLLMENT.--By family enrollment (such as variations within categories and compositions of families) so long as the ratio of the premium for family enrollment (or enrollments) to the premium for individual enrollment is uniform, as specified under State law and consistent with rules of the Commissioner.

Insurers must provide maternity coverage: Insurers will no longer be able to avoid providing maternity care to women.

SEC. 222. ESSENTIAL BENEFITS PACKAGE DEFINED.
(a) IN GENERAL.--In this division, the term ''essential benefits package'' means health benefits coverage, consistent with standards adopted under section 224, to ensure the provision of quality health care and financial security, that--
...
(b) MINIMUM SERVICES TO BE COVERED.--Subject to subsection (d), the items and services described in this subsection are the following:
...
(9) Maternity care.

New offices of women's health established: Both the department of Health & Human Services and the Center for Disease Control will now have an office dedicated to studying women's health issues.

SEC. 229. HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES OFFICE ON WOMEN'S HEALTH.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT OF OFFICE.--There is established within the Office of the Secretary, an Office on Women's Health

SEC. 310A. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION OFFICE OF WOMEN'S HEALTH.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.--There is established within the Office of the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an office to be known as the Office of Women's Health

For more on the positive changes women will see under the House bill, be sure to check out this factsheet put out by the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The positive measures in the House bill shows that when women all over the country speak out about gender equity in health care, or members of Congress listen. Moving forward, however, we must keep the pressure on to make sure that the legislation we saw put forth yesterday is signed into law.

Take your ticket for gender equity and help spread the word that the current health insurance system must be changed - women deserve equal coverage for equal premiums.

The insurance industry is sick. After studying the symptoms, we've diagnosed them with "Goldilocks syndrome," named after the little blonde heroine of the popular children's story.

Like her, insurance companies have broken into people's homes but then cherry-picked which customers are "too big" or "too small" to insure, settling on the ones that are "juuust right." The stories have been all over the news over the past few weeks: one baby who was "too big," another toddler who was "too small." But the insurance companies aren't dealing with fictional talking bears. These are real people who need medical coverage.

In the most recent case of "Goldilocks syndrome," an insurance company turned down a perfectly healthy 40-year-old woman for being "too small." Wendy Stewart, who is 5' 1" and tips the scales at 90 pounds, was denied coverage because of her small stature. Aside from the sheer insanity of deeming someone "too small" to insure, Wendy is actually not even that small by medical standards: the ideal weight for her height is between 95 and 116 lbs. She may not be be perfect, but she's certainly not in any danger.

Of course if this whole story is sounding familiar, you may be remembering another case of "Goldilocks syndrome" in Colorado, which was uncovered a few weeks ago during a HELP Committee hearing. Peggy Robertson testified that her three-year-old son Luke was denied insurance by Golden Rule Insurance, a subsidiary of United Healthcare, because he was "too small." While Golden Rule claimed that they were following industry standards, our recent revelation makes you wonder exactly what those "standards" dictate.

The insurance industry wants us to think these are isolated cases. Clearly, however, the numbers don't lie. More and more people are coming out with similar stories of denial. How many more are still out there? Worse yet, how many more are not even aware that their claims were denied based on outrageous height and weight requirements?

Lobbyists and members of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) descended on Washington D.C. yesterday for a meeting at the Capitol Hilton. The timing was suspect, to say the least. Now that a competitive public option seems likely, AHIP appeared to be drumming up fear by releasing a report suggesting they'd be forced to hike health premiums if reform passed into law. And earlier this week, an AHIP lobbyists told Republicans not to "comfort the enemy" by voting with Democrats on health care reform. After months of pretending to support reform, insurance companies are finally showing their true colors.

As the insurance industry lobbyists plotted, over 500 health care supporters decided to mobilized outside the Hilton with signs, t-shirts and chants. SEIU members and supporters joined the protest, donning "I am not a pre-existing condition" t-shirts to show their support for ending insurance company discrimination against women.

Inside the building, seven families who had been denied care by the insurance companies demanded to meet with AHIP's President Karen Ignagni. The group wanted to share their health care stories with her, but she declined to even meet with them!

Meanwhile, outside the protestors only grew louder chanting: "AHIP, get off it! People over profit!"

Over the past few weeks, SEIU activists have been fighting against insurance company practices that unfairly discriminate against women. Our campaign culminated this week with the release of a "deli counter ticket" tool promoting gender equity in health care. Today, the White House joined the chorus of voices on this issue by releasing of a video from the First Lady explaining how, as Secretary Sebelius says, "Women would be a lot better off with health insurance reform."

Take a moment to hear from Michelle first hand, and be sure to share this video with the women in your life:

From not covering maternity care to calling domestic violence a pre-existing condition, insurance companies seem to have written the book on how to turn a buck at the expense of millions of women in America. Now add "rape victim" to the long list of ways in which insurance companies discriminate against women.

The most recent example of this is recounted at Womenstake.org about a rape survivor from Tampa, FL named Chris Turner. When Chris began looking for health insurance after her sexual assault, the insurance companies she contacted told her they would deny coverage to a rape survivor. Chris had described to them a hypothetical rape victim (which was actually her), and told them of being proactive following her assault, by seeking preventative anti-HIV medicated and counseling. Apparently, that was a little too pro-active for insurance companies.

After her rape, Chris had been so afraid that she had been unable to leave her house for some time. Chris had no choice but to seek help. The steps she took to heal after her sexual assault became obstacles to her future health and well-being, and these were cited for reasons why insurance companies refused to insure her.

So what would Chris have had to do in order to not be rejected from receiving coverage after being raped? Get into a time machine and undo this terrible experience that was out of her control? Almost. In order to qualify for insurance coverage at all, Chris would have had to have tested negative for HIV for two to three years, along with completing one to two years of intensive counseling (depending on the specific insurance company and plan). Womenstake.org poses this question:

If Chris, an insurance agent who knows the ins and outs of the insurance market, was unable to obtain health insurance following her assault, what chance do the rest of us have?

Not much. Even when women are able to obtain coverage, they pay up to 48% more for private health insurance than men for the same policies. Insurance company abuse must end.

The health reform bills in Congress ban the use of "pre-existing conditions" to deny care, and eliminate the practice of "gender rating" to charge women more than men. Tell members of Congress this is unacceptable: no one should be denied health care coverage, least of all women who have already endured so much.

Thousands of people have taken a ticket for gender equity in health care. (We're currently at 2,689 people in line.)

Want to play an even bigger role in fighting insurance company discrimination against women?

We rigged our toll-free phone line to direct calls to male members of Congress. That's right - the men in Congress need to hear from us about how women are routinely discriminated against by insurance companies. Let's educate them on what women are facing every day: higher premiums, less coverage, and battles with insurers over "pre-existing conditions" like pregnancy and c-sections.

Call 1-866-311-3405 and tell them it's time to deliver on health insurance reform.

Let's educate male members of Congress on how women are unfairly discriminated against by health insurers. Call toll-free at 1-866-311-3405. Use this form to report back on your conversation.

If you happen to live in a district that is represented by women in both the House and Senate, we'll patch you through to the Capitol Switchboard, where we recommend you contact the Minority Leader in the House or Senate. Call 1-866-311-3405 and report-back.

Have you gotten in line for gender equity yet? If not, stop reading this post and go to http://ticket.seiu.org to do it now!

If you have, then thank you for spreading the word about women's health care. Now, would you like to help us do more? We've pulled together a list of other things happening today that are related to women's health care:

1. Join us in calling male members of Congress and educating them about health care reform.
2. Head over to one of the DNC's women-to-women phone banks happening tonight.
3. Check out the National Women's Law Center's web site and be sure to watch their new video:

Our friends at the National Women's Law Center have produced tons of research on this issue. They research showed how, in some states, domestic violence can be considered a "pre-existing condition," and how insurers routinely apply a "gender rating" to insurance premiums that unfairly discriminate against female customers. Now, they've launched a new site to help underscore the institutionalized gender discrimination in the health care system. Visit http://www.awomanisnotapreexistingcondition.com to learn more.

UPDATE: Check out the first page of the letter that Golden Rule sent to Peggy rejecting her application and suggesting she gets sterilized.

After having a c-section, Peggy Robertson received a letter. It was from her insurance company, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, and it basically said this: get sterilized, or you won't receive coverage.

No insurance company should ever be allowed to demand a woman be sterilized.

Today, Peggy shared her story before a Senate committee. Her experience mortified everyone, including Sen. Mikulski, who called it "bone-chiling" and the insurance policy "morally repugnant." Today, she stood up for herself, her family and millions of American women. We need to make sure she's not standing alone.

But Peggy's story didn't end there. A year later, insurance companies refused to cover her healthy two-year-old son - first, because he was prone to fainting and, later, because he was "too small."

Peggy's son Luke is currently covered by a special program in Colorado that extends insurance to the terminally ill, but there is nothing wrong with him! He's yet another victim of insurance industry practices, just like his mom. Tell Congress about Peggy's story, and why it's time to deliver on health insurance reform.

Watch Peggy's story, then send a message to Congress.

As the health care debate moves to the Senate floor, we need to make sure members of Congress know the human price of their delay. We can't let children like Luke continue to go without coverage because they're "too small." And we can't let the insurance industry deny another woman like Peggy coverage because of "pre-existing conditions" like c-sections. Join us in reminding Congress that it's time to deliver on health insurance reform.

In preparation for Sen. Mikulski's hearings today, we decided to pay a little visit to various male members of Congress yesterday. Armed with information about women's health care, we distributed the flyer to male, Republican Representatives in the Cannon office building.

Check out our video:

Stay tuned to find out more about the hearings held by Sen. Mikulski later today! Click here for ways you can show your support for gender equality in health care.

While no votes were cast on health care reform this week, there wasn't a dull moment on the Hill. In case you missed it, here's a list of this week's major developments:

1. The CBO came out with a final scoring of the Senate Finance health care reform bill and concluded that it will reduce the deficit by $81 billion over the next decade. While Democrats cheered the fact that the bill came in way under President Obama's $900 billion cap, Republicans were still not pleased. Makes you wonder exactly what will get them to vote for health care reform.
2. Nine female Senators stole the show on the Senate floor when they delivered powerful back-to-back speeches about women's health care. Their male Democratic colleagues counterparts responded with rousing support, in stark contrast to their Republican counterparts.
3. More and more GOPers have thrown their weight behind health care reform, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and President George W. Bush's Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. Perhaps the Republicans in Congress will come around soon as well?
4. 30 Democratic Senators sent a letter to Harry Reid supporting the public option, including Sen. Specter. While that's still not a majority of all Senators, it's clear that the public option is still alive and kicking in the Senate.
5. Sen. Baucus picks a date: October 13. That's when the Senate Finance Committee will vote on their final bill. Took them long enough!

Following up on their rousing back-to-back speeches on the Senate floor, the "women of the Senate" took their message into America's living rooms last night when they appeared on Larry King live.

The nine Senators, who spoke via television from the White House visitors center, renewed their call for an end to gender-based discrimination in our health care system, touting health care reform as a way of achieving that goal.

Earlier today, Speaker Pelosi spoke forcefully against the fact that in some states, insurance companies can actually deny coverage to victims of domestic violence on the grounds that they have a pre-existing condition.

Check out what she told CNN:

When SEIU broke this story earlier this month, over 5,000 of our supporters were outraged and wrote letters to Congress telling them to end this abhorrent practice.

Will you join them, and Speaker Pelosi, in calling for an end of all "pre-existing conditions," including domestic violence, once and for all?

If Republicans and right-wing talking heads had their way, the only "women's issue" up for discussion in relation to health care reform would be how to best circumvent a woman's right to choose. While that has gotten a great deal of attention, more and more news outlets are picking up on the myriad of other problems associated with women's health care today.

Earlier today, USA Today published a story examining the other health care issues women face, including the practice by many insurance companies of charging women more than men for comparable plans as well as their use of the term "pre-existing condition" to describe anything from giving birth via a Cesarean section to being a victim of domestic violence. The article draws quotes from many groups and indiviuduals fighting for women's health care, including Senator Barbara Mikulski, who spoke last week at a press conference on this very issue.

In other good news, lawmakers in Oklahoma decided not to wait for Congress to pass health care reform: they've moved to forbid the practice of labeling domestic violence a pre-existing condition in their state. Democratic state Rep. Eric Proctor and Republican state Sen. Randy Brogdon are working together to produce legislation they plan on introducing when the state Legislature convenes in February.

"Regardless of party, everyone can agree that this is the right thing to do. Our moral obligation to protect life demands action," said Proctor. "Our mothers, sisters, and daughters depend on us to do the right thing. They need not worry about being denied insurance coverage when they are trying to rebuild their lives."

North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm said he is planning to seek similar changes to the insurance law in his state as well.

When looking at all of these actions, it's important to remember the part you played in making women's health care a national issue. Earlier this month, when SEIU broke the fact that domestic violence can be categorized as a pre-existing condition in eight states and DC, you sent over 5,000 letters to Congress, helping catapult this issue to national prominence practically over night.

But, the fight it not over. We need to keep the momentum going and finish what we started.

Last week, we covered the many ways in which women are discriminated against in our current health care system. From not covering maternity care to calling domestic violence a pre-existing condition, insurance companies seem to have written the book on how to turn a buck at the expense of millions of women in America.

Earlier this month, Sen. Jon Kyl also decided to get in on the act by claiming "I don't need maternity care. So requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive."

His statement clearly show that, when it comes to women's health care, certain male senators are taking all of their cues from insurance companies. Help educate members of Congress about the numerous challenges women face when it comes to getting quality, affordable coverage by signing the petition for insurance reform that puts an end to all gender-based discrimination.

Earlier this month, we covered the fact that in eight states it is actually legal for insurance companies to deny coverage to victims of domestic violence because they have a "pre-existing condition." But, the outrage doesn't stop there: research has clearly shown that insurance companies are systematically discriminating against women.

There are only 10 states (Washington, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine) where it is illegal for insurance companies to take gender into account when decided how much to charge someone for their insurance policy. Thus, as a result of "gender rating," insurance companies actually charge women more than men for the same plans. Across the country, 25 year old women are charged up to 45 percent more than 25 year old men for the same coverage.

Insurers justify charging women higher premiums than men by claiming that women require health care services more frequently than men do. How much more? Well, judging by rate variations, insurance companies haven't figured that out yet. In Missouri, for example, rates for 40 year old women range from 15% to 45% more than rates for men of the same age and for equivalent coverage. It would seem then that the insurance industry is simply using the specter of women's increased need for medical care as justification to increase their premiums arbitrarily, with little concern for the actual cost disparities that may exist.

And this is just the tip of the ice berg! Over the coming week, we'll cover other ways in which women are consistently marginalized in the insurance market place. If you're not outraged yet, we promise you will be by the end of this week.

But, there is something you can do: tell your member of Congress that we need to pass health insurance reform that makes gender-based discrimination illegal.

Insurance companies can cite pregnancy as grounds to deny a woman coverage based on her "pre-existing condition."

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 requires employers with more than 15 workers to include maternity benefits in their insurance packages. However, as Think Progress reports today, only 14 states require comprehensive maternity care to be included in coverage in policies sold on the individual market. Most individual insurers don't cover maternity care, and the number of plans without maternity coverage continues to rise dramatically.

The realities of this are shocking. Freelance author Sarah Wildman discovered the hard way that most insurance companies on the individual market consider pregnancy "optional." The fetus is viewed as an uncovered "pre-existing condition," and therefore not something that's necessary for insurance companies (like Anthem Blue Cross) to insure.

"The point of insurance is to insure against catastrophic care costs. That's what you're trying to aggregate and pool for such things as heart attacks and cancer," said an Anthem Blue Cross spokesman. "Having a child is a matter of choice. Dealing with an adult onset illness, such as diabetes, heart disease, breast or prostate cancer, is not a matter of choice."

After giving birth to her daughter, Sarah and her husband racked up more than thousands in medical bills--to the tune of almost $25,000--despite the fact that she had maternity insurance. Being self-employed, Sarah falls into the individual insurance market, along with an estimated 27 million other Americans who are also freelancers, entrepreneurs, transitioning out of college/grad school, or newly unemployed, according to the American Medical Association. As more and more Americans lose their employer-based coverage--an estimated 17,000 do every day--this number will keep steadily rising.

Yet as unsatisfying as individual market coverage is for many Americans, it's also easily taken away, especially if you fall in to the approximately 30 percent of women who have a Cesarean section. Many insurers consider a Cesarean section pregnancy a "pre-existing condition"--and refuse to provide health coverage for women who have had the procedure.