Dear Friend,
The Montana constitution and Montana law prohibits any insurer from discriminating on the basis of sex or marital status. This law has been on the books in Montana for 25 years, and for 25 years no legislature has overturned it.
But these protections are at risk, Senate Bill 142, sponsored by Senator Gary Perry (R, Manhatten-35) would allow insurance companies to discriminate against women in insurance pricing.
I testified against this bill in the Montana Legislature. Now, I need your help to defeat it.
Take a quick minute TODAY to please contact your legislator online or by phone (406-444-4462).
Find your legislator online through Project Vote Smart.
Keep it simple. State your opposition to SB 142, give your address and phone number so that your legislator knows you live in her or his district.
Just as we do not tolerate the practice of using race as a factor in setting rates, we should not and do not tolerate using gender.
In fact, studies have shown that in states without laws against gender discrimination in insurance products there is widespread disparity in the cost of health insurance. In these states, many women pay much more than men of the same age for insurance policies providing identical coverage. That just isn’t right.
This bill would hurt Montana families by increasing the cost of insurance and decreasing the benefits they receive.
The bill is unconstitutional.
The LA Times recently reported that the California Department of Insurance is being sued for allowing insurers to discriminate against women after California “approved a system that allows the insurance companies to impose “gender rating” when pricing policies, resulting in women paying as much as 39% more for coverage then men.”
Montana’s “Non-gender” insurance law benefits all consumers.
Insurance companies must treat all consumers equally. Auto insurance premiums decrease for men, and women benefit on life and health policies.
In 2006, 30 other states had a higher average premium for personal automobile insurance. The average combined premium in Montana is 11% lower than the national average.
Regarding SB 142–don’t fix it if it ain’t broke. The present laws and the MT state constitution call for non-discrimination on the basis of gender. This bill would hurt women and men, but the burden would fall largely upon women. Please defeat this bill.
Judith Pressmar
Kalispell MT
Women’s lobbies addressed this problem forty years ago when they took insurance companies to court all over the country, and won. It was a fair common sense decision, based on expected pay-outs for each group, that has long been settled law in most of the United States.
Unfortunately women’s lobbies have been interested only in very selective application of the legal principle involved. They have NOT been interested in applying the same principle to other insurance programs where they would not win an advantage – such as the biggest of all, Social Security and Medicare.
Male workers have been waiting in vain for forty years to achieve some level of equitable contribution in their monthly government insurance premium payments. For Social Security the premium subsidy received by women workers from men workers has been around 45%; for Medicare it’s been around 75%. (This is how much women’s premiums would have to be increased, or men premiums decreased, in order to achieve some measure of equitable participation in these programs based on expected pay-out amounts.) Worse, women’s lobbies have steadfastly refused to allow these huge subsidies (plus other big financial benefits) to be included with “pay” when claiming that “women earn less than men”, while using the exact same percentages they used during the 1960s – a half century ago.
Women’s self-interested lobbies can do these things because men are just incredibly stupid (and cowardly, too).
And I can say that men are stupid and cowardly, and anything else I wish, because (1) it’s true, and (2) men don’t have any lobbies. (It’s a “chicken or egg” thing. You figure it out.)
I should point out that the European Union begs to differ, its court having just ruled that premium differences based on gender are discriminatory against males. But I don’t know anyone who understands European bureaucrats anyway; they’re even dumber than American men.