Should women pay more for health insurance?

I have been paying about $7000 a year for health insurance and have never used it once in about ten years. You're welcome, everybody.

Also, women are more likely to be diagnosed with depression overall which is another cost to healthcare. In my opinion either no insurance should be biased at all (such as car insurance being most expensive for young males) or it should be biased in all appropriate cases. For me, this means that if according to the available data women cost the health care system more on average then it makes sense for health insurance to cost more for women. Just as the elderly also cost more to the system or young men cost more to the car insurance system.

Honestly look at how others are treated in similar issues and if you really think that those situations are just, then this is just as well. If not, everything needs to be changed.

In an ideal world, individuals would pay an adjusted rate based on past use of services, including frequency of use and cost of the services used. If i don't use my health insurance often, I should pay less for it.

That being said, I think that what you'd find is that women would be paying more on average, since it's been my experience that they seek services both more often and of higher cost than men.

Your argument falls apart quickly, as others have stated. No, of course they shouldn't. But judging by those dumb poll options, you have no interest in hearing or respecting that opinion.

Fuck judging the individual based on a statistic of the overarching population. Fuck that.

The issue seems to be that no individual has any "bargaining power" so it doesn't matter if it is a man or woman. This warping makes health care highly inelastic where the end result is that US spends way more for same found in other places (and often times less). Men and women are going to pay whatever the health industry says they are going to pay.

There should be no health insurance. State funded healthcare with private options.

The bottom line is that paying for insurance based on your actual risk is not a road you want to start going down. Period.

No matter how self righteous you feel right now, there will be atime when you are a far greater risk to an insurance company than you feel you are right now, and in that moment you will regret everything you have said about paying for insurance being based on relative risk.

I'd be ok with this as long as sexist people had their reproductive organs removed. You up for that Space Insomniac?

No .... but I also think that insurance companies are evil fuck ups scammers

Complicated answer, depending on what we're talking about, yes and no.

Common illnesses with common cures, easily fixed injuries, basic pregnancy and birth related complications, and basic management of age degradation should be counted as humanitarian medicine, and be taken care of by society regardless of the individual's social standing or perceived worth.

Excessively life-prolonging measures, vanity and other elective surgeries, complicated uncommon illnesses and injuries should not be covered however. Some things are just meant to be lethal, if you don't live your life accordingly and prepare for such. If you can't afford it, you shouldn't have it, and the price should be subject to the free market and its rules.

If women are more expensive in that regard, they should pay what is due. However, basic care shouldn't ever be a question. Just use the militia system for basic medic care or something, rather than having a standing army that's millions strong and hundreds of billions expensive.

Men have a lower expected lifespan so wouldn't that make them a higher health risk, especially after 60? Whether or not you live off of soda and never work out and stress over everything are much bigger factors than whatever blanket you can throw over a specific gender.

As statistically true as this might be, I personally do not believe we should take any steps towards men and women being separated as far as rights and treatment and all that junk are concerned.

I would personally be more than happy to pay that little extra to ensure that things remain equal between the sexes (or at least close to equal), speaking from the perspective of a man.

And I mean, I'm no doctor, but don't a lot of their health problems come from us sticking our dicks in them?

Forgive my relative ignorance on the subject, this is just me musing.

As a Canadian, The American health insurance industry broadcasts blatant lies about my country's healthcare system in its political advertising (in the US). Not a huge fan of american insurance companies as a result.

Canada has also made moves to offset the increased burden for high risk people - a good example is the huge taxes levied on cigarettes, due to the fact that smokers are causing a voluntary burden on our health system.

Based on the american system though - don't you guys have different levels of coverage? I doubt elective surgeries and all this extra stuff is covered under typical plans - up here we've got supplementary private or employer based insurance to cover this stuff.

@corvak: Most Americans hate the insurance companies too. I, personally, think profiting off of health care is a fairly disgusting practice.

Yeah, that Yahoo article is so completely bias and one-sided. Unlike this thread which is completely fair.

I live in the UK, and generally don't have to worry about this sort of thing, but If you're unlucky enough to have a family history of heart disease, do you have to pay gigantic insurance premiums? That doesn't seem fair - maybe you're more likely to use your insurance, but it's hardly your fault, and that is why your insurance is there, after all.

Also, some people have been comparing this to car insurance. Might be interesting to note that last year the European Court of Justice ruled that gender can no longer be taken into account when deciding car insurance premiums, on the grounds that it's discriminatory. So, it does work both ways - women can subsidise men as well as vice versa. The better off subsidise the less fortunate. It's only fair.

I don't see the option that says No, spaceinsomniac is a stupid sexist who needs to go away

Just like ad-based revenue models, the current insurance system in America is buh-ro-ken. Burn it to the ground and replace it with something that works.

The US should just accept a single payer system already, it's crazy to think if I go to a hospital I might not receive treatment.

It's why the government poison our water and air man, it's totally for the money man, they're trying to make us sick so we can't fight back and take all of our stuff. Follow the money, chemtrails.

@jay_ray said:

You know that doesn't happen, right? An emergency room in the US will always help you no matter what your insurance situation is. You'll of course get billed later, but you still recieve treatment up front.

Totally this. Those doctors, nurses, lab scientists and everyone else who want to get paid like the rest of us for dedicating their lives to helping others, and those companies that enable people to access healthcare that would be too expensive for them otherwise... disgusting.

A lot of the things many insurance companies do are sleazy. But that only happens because there is little understanding of insurance in the first place. Education and empowering people is the only thing that can help change the situation. Ignorance and hatred is exactly what the "disgusting" people want.

@jay_ray: I...what? Did my post sound at all like something a conspiracy theorist would say? Because it wasn't. I don't think insurance companies should profit off of a basic human right to healthcare.

@spaceinsomniac, I've noted that you're a fairly smart person (in that when you want to you can show a decent understanding of the other side's argument), which is why I think you knew exactly what you were doing when you created that poll. If you were trolling for a response, you got it, so I guess it worked?

While you're at it, may I propose the following well-worded poll:

How often to you beat your wife? It's an honest question.

Lastly, in all seriousness, if you try to break down insurance and micro-target all pre-existing, non-self-inflicted conditions, you've kind of destroyed its original purpose. It's in the best interest of society to keep its citizens in good health, and America is so far off from the right way of doing this it's sad.

Is it any different than having it based on age? Why shouldn't other demographics be introduced if age is already a factor in cost? Either it should be flat across the board or based on certain criteria. I actually think health insurance should be cheaper the older you are, but that is not the case and is a lot more expensive as you age. Granted different insurances, different prices, but age is still a factor in all if I am not mistaken.

Health insurance is a different beast than auto insurance, no matter what you do there are things with health that you cannot prevent and have no control over whatsoever. Putting the value of someones life into dollar signs is honestly one of the most deplorable things about our society IMO. Your basically saying, that being born a woman should raise the cost of staying healthy. If that's the case then Women should have a higher minimum wage since the cost of living is obviously higher, but since (from my understanding) women statistically make a lower wage then men in the first place wouldn't paying the same premium for health insurance basically average itself out anyway right? If the cost of health insurance for women is higher and they make less money on average, then on average wouldn't they be paying a higher percentage of their income for health insurance?

Last i remember we do require both sexes to reproduce our species, so making it harder for one sex over the other to get proper health care simply because they require more of it, seems rather counterproductive. But i guess people are basically dollar signs when you live a debt fueled economy.

(just my opinion, i'm not gonna go back and forth about it honestly. I'm just stating my piece and leaving)

Approaching health insurance from a business perspective is everything that is wrong with health insurance.

This.

I'm firmly of the belief that health care is one of those things like roads - an essential public utility. Right now we let a handful of insurance providers maintain sanctioned near-monopolies over broad swaths of the country, and on top of that their first loyalty is to their stockholders - it's their fiduciary duty to put profit over quality and affordability of service, any less and their shareholders could sue them. The free market might normally correct this kind of thing, but that's hard to do when you have organizations that are so entrenched, territorial, and anti-competitive.

Good government run healthcare has been implemented in enough other first-world countries that we really have no excuse left here in the USA.

Insurance in general terms are ways to "hedge against disaster". Since when is "my 5 year old has a fever" is a disaster that requires insurance to cover?

I pay more for car insurance than a woman my age...

Exactly. This is what I wanted to hear from anyone who disagreed with me. Very well said, and very much the best reason to oppose women paying more.

Better yet, how about "Yes or no, have you stopped beating your wife?" It is a LOADED question. :)

And again, I would agree with universal health care if our government had proven itself trustworthy with our money in the past. I do not believe that it has, especially when it comes to social security. It's also a fairness issue when you ask people to pay for something that they don't want to pay for.

But I wasn't trolling for a response, either. I meant that last poll option as completely genuine, as I know some people see things that way. Several people here have also listed age as another factor that shouldn't determine premiums, which makes that poll option completely valid as well.

I don't know if you're American, but in Canada, this is the one of the main reasons the government uses to justify large annual increases in taxes on tobacco.

People do not pay the same into any public program, by nature of having a progressive tax system.

Evidence does not entail argument. Why would you assume that more women becoming researchers would increase the efficacy of diagnosis and treatment of women, do you believe women to be so selfish as to only focus on research that benefits themselves? Or is it that you believe male researchers to be so selfish as to only focus on research that benefits themselves? Truly the only non-sexist justification to that ridiculous argument is that you believe all researchers are so selfish as to only focus on research that benefits themselves.

It's good to know that the number one thing that we should be judging scientific researchers by is not their area of research, or the quality of their research, the breadth of their background, their standing in peer-review... no, the number one factor in a researcher is whether or not they have the correct chromosomes. Jesus Christ.

This is well stated. The old line about health care costing women more is only such because of how inelastic it has proven to be. If they say it costs 500 dollars for this treatment or 5,000 dollars for this treatment, it doesn't often matter because women are more likely to get it anyway, especially when if we're talking about reproduction. It can be argued that (stereotypically) men's refusal to go to a doctor until it starts to smell has in some way lowered the average expenditure on men.

The problem is is that medicine should not be a for-profit industry, it should be a contingency of your citizenship and your following the laws. I don't think people necessarily have a problem with doctors or nurses, in fact, it seems like most people agree that the more of them there is the better. Where it breaks down is that in free enterprise, there's no incentive to hire more doctors or nurses if it reduces the dividends or draws of those who supplied the capital. By nature of their very existence, health is not the objective, and you will never see a surplus of health care, you will only see a surplus of profits going into a small number of pockets.

No one should pay anything for health insurance. I find it absolutely fascinating that The US is one of the few western countries where you have to get health insurance instead of it being free. Administrative costs and pharmaceutical companies competing with each other makes the system much more expensive than ought to be. Treating the average American patient costs several times more than any other country in the world because of this.

Universal healthcare should be a minimum requirement in a 1st world country.

So where's the take-away that men should be encouraged to go to the doctor more?

lol yeah, of course, sure. But so long as disabled people pay the most... what - *I* should have to pay for their ramps? Fuck that.

I was about to say the same thing.

@brodehouse said:

that about sums up how i feel. i think it's utterly fucked to treat people differently on account of their genetic makeup. life choices is one thing, but to expect those born with the bad luck of high-cost health issues? that's beyond the pale. i'm of the mind that health care is and should be a right, not a privilege. and i don't want to be part of a society that says "not my problem."

This aughta be good.

Follow up: While we are on the topic of "women's health", the fact that "child birth" itself is covered in peculiar ways and treated as catastrophic as some ICU treatments before they check in shows how crazy and warped the whole system is. Women have been giving birth for millions of years. This isn't an accident or an emergency but to make sure people get paid we treat it as such demanding payment resulting in situations where some woman is in labor and someone is hounding them for money.

Maybe I'm not understanding you, but it seems like you're saying that in a for-profit situation there's no incentive to hire employees, which to me seems like the opposite from every other industry. Growth creates more profits, not matter what field you're in.

Healthcare in the US (and many other countries) is prevented from expanding and flourishing like other businesses by things like restrictive licensure, having to deal with incredibly complex payment structures through insurance companies and the government, and prohibitive malpractice insurance that medical practitioners have to pay.

A surplus of healthcare, as you say, is impossible under these restrictive conditions, because doctors' and hospitals' income is an abstract thing, which causes them to be cautious. With government involvement, it only restricts them further. A more open system that affords citizens with the tools to know where their money's going is the only way to attract more doctors (who yes, are looking for profits but can make them by providing customers good service, rather than conning them like many insurance companies) while lowering prices for everyone through greater competition.

We ban people like Hizang but chuckles the clown here gets to stay? :/

This is weird because we are going to be forced to pay for health insurance. If it was just an optional business transaction then a straight, pay-per-your-risk-group deal makes sense.

But when you HAVE to buy it? I don't know. It's an odd situation.

Right now it's more of a situation where low-risk groups are paying the way for high-risk groups. I understand why some people are fine with that I just wouldn't call it equitable.

Women are generally paid less than men in the same position. Asking them to then pay more for the same level of health care seems doubly insulting.

No, no, no, no, no. I just took what you said and ran to the extreme of why profiting from illness is shitty.

No. But, I also don't think a country should be set up in such a way that healthcare quality is determined by the amount of money an individual makes. The system used in the US right now is atrocious.

No, of course not. Different people, equal rights. Men live shorter lives on average, so if anything, we should pay more. We could drop dead at any minute. I'm tired of this right wing sexism/racism crap that's on the rise all over the world. If you're not a socialist, you're doing something wrong. Easy as that.

All i know is as a teenager i pay a shit ton more for insurance.