Blue Shield's Epstein said gender-specific pricing was being phased in for all of the insurer's 330,000 individual policies. He also said that although some policies were going up in price, others were holding prices steady but cutting back on benefits.
"Healthcare costs are going up dramatically," Epstein said. "If you have the same benefits, the rate is going to go up."
Individual health insurance typically costs more than group coverage because the risks can't be spread among a large number of people. Such risk pools allow all people with group policies to be insured equally, without biases for age or gender.
Many individual policies come with high deductibles and are intended primarily to cover major problems.
Blue Shield is by no means alone in jacking up rates or cutting benefits for policyholders. Premiums for employer-sponsored insurance plans rose by an average 6.1% last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The average premium for family coverage ran $12,106, with workers paying $3,281 of that amount.
Premiums for nongroup policies ranged from $1,163 to $5,090 for individuals and $2,325 to $9,201 for families.
But parsing rates according to gender is a relatively new phenomenon. If women are more expensive than men to insure, and middle-aged women are significantly more expensive than middle-aged men, what about, say, older women with red hair? After all, they have fairer skin and thus are more susceptible to skin cancer.
How about if, statistically speaking, blacks are more expensive to insure than whites? Or Christians more expensive to cover than kosher-observing Jews?
How far will insurers go in determining risks?
"That's a good question," Epstein replied, although he said it's "not economical to try" distinctions that go beyond age and gender.
Hack said she'll be graduating next year and looks forward to landing a full-time job as a teacher.
"Hopefully I'll be working for a school district," she said. "I hear they have really good insurance."
For the moment at least.
--
Consumer Confidential runs Wednesdays and Sundays. Send your tips or feedback to david.lazarus@latimes.com.
