Women hit harder with health care costs

Recently, my mother underwent surgery for a prolapsed bladder, a common surgery many women her age undergo because of past pregnancies. It cost my parents $3,000 out of pocket, steep for two 65-year-olds about to start living on fixed incomes.

I talk to friends and family and it seems absurd that women are forced to pay higher insurance premiums and health care costs for being someone's mom. Insurance companies are the culprits here. Every single insurance executive had a mother. Why do members of Congress have to impose regulations for something so obviously unfair?

The new health care reform bill out of the Senate Finance Committee will reduce the deficit by more than $80 billion in the next 10 years, says the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

But the American Health Insurance Plans, an association of insurance companies, recently came out with a bogus report trying to derail the health care bill by falsely claiming that it would increase premiums for people. If that were true, wouldn't they be in support of it?

Joe Nehring

Iowa City