Individual Health Insurance Concerns and Gender
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Elizabeth Edwards, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and wife of former Presidential candidate John Edwards, made news recently when she argued that under Presidential candidate John McCain's individual health insurance plan, neither she nor he would be able to get coverage.
This is because Edwards is currently battling breast cancer, and John McCain has been previously diagnosed with skin cancer. According to the spot at thinkprogress.org, Edwards asserts that McCain's plan is "fundamentally at odds with the point of health insurance: that we share risks," and that by allowing the insurance market to govern itself those people who represent a costly risk (the sick), will fall by the wayside.
Furthermore, she goes on to decry the now-common practice of many individual health insurance agencies to charge women more for their coverage, simply because they are women.
The reason for the costlier premiums aren't too clearly defined, but it could have to do with anything from maternity costs, to the need for yearly exams and mammograms.
As a result, women find it harder to enroll in affordable health insurance, which prompts Edwards to point this out as one more reason why the individual health insurance market is "fundamentally broken."