Health insurance
Affordable Care Act–compliant plans sold through the state exchanges and the federal marketplace can’t use gender as a factor in setting premiums.18 However,
short-term health insurance plans can and often do charge women significantly higher premiums than men.19
Is this discrepancy justified? An issue brief from the
National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), an insurance industry advocacy group, says that women’s medical costs during childbearing years are more than 45% higher than those for men of the same age, and the difference can be as much as 270%, including maternity costs. The difference decreases with age, and men become more expensive users of healthcare by their mid-50s.20