Health care reform improves coverage for women

Insurance companies used to treat many women-specific health concerns as a liability. The health care reform bill aims to improve coverage parity with men. Before reform, it was legal for insurance companies to charge women more than men for the same coverage. Private providers routinely charged women 20, 40 even 80 percent more than their male counterparts. Some insurance providers listed pregnancy and being a victim of domestic violence as pre-existing conditions, allowing them to deny women coverage.

We speak with Marcia Greenburger, founder and co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, about how insurance protection for women will change under health care reform.