What’s worse than the Obamacare website? The thing where Obamacare makes it illegal for health insurance companies to discriminate against women on the basis of their gender, according to Fox Business News’s John Stossel.
“When did you last go to the doctor?,” he asked Steve Doocy yesterday. “Elizabeth’s going to answer quite quickly. Women go to the doctor much more often than men. Maybe they’re smarter, or maybe they’re hypochondriacs. They live longer. But if it’s insurance, you ought to be able to charge the people who use the services more, more.”
And if women are not hypochondriacs, Doocy pointed out, they’re probably just pregnant. “As a number of Republicans have made the argument, why should I pay for — I’m in my 60s, why should I pay for your maternity coverage?” he asked.
That’s a slight mischaracterization of the “gender rating” practice the Affordable Care Act made illegal. According to the National Women’s Law Center, insurers charged women in the individual health insurance market approximately $1 billion more annually on their premiums alone, regardless of how many times they went to the doctor, and regardless of whether they had a baby. In 88 percent of individual market plans, maternity costs extra.
Somewhere off-camera, Megyn Kelly glared at the monitor, snapping a pencil in frustration.
