With the way our economy has been declining lately, more and more people are losing their jobs and losing their employer-sponsored health insurance. So, more and more people are now shopping for individual health insurance policies, and many are finding those policies to be unaffordable - especially for women.

A recent analysis of insurance data shows that women generally pay much more for health insurance than men of the same age, for identical coverage. An interesting article was just published by The New York Times, detailing this significant gap in the cost of health insurance.

In some cases, a woman’s health insurance policy can cost hundreds of dollars more per year than for a man - for the same exact coverage. Insurance providers claim they have a legitimate reason for this price discrepancy: women ages 19 - 55 typically use more health care, especially during their childbearing years. Apparently, a history of insurance claims shows that women are more likely to visit doctors, get regular check-ups, take prescription medications, and have certain chronic illnesses.

Interestingly, though, many insurance policies don’t even cover maternity costs - and women are still paying more for these policies than men. Most insurance policies offer maternity coverage only as an optional benefit, if you pay a higher premium.

Thomas T. Noland Jr., a senior vice president for Humana, has said of the price discrepancy, “Premiums for our individual health insurance plans reflect claims experience - the use of medical services - which varies by gender and age. Females use more medical services than males, and this difference is most pronounced in young adults.” In fact, insurance providers claim that if the insurance costs for males and females were equalized, rates for men would go up.

On employer-based health insurance, civil rights laws prohibit gender discrimination. Employers are not allowed to charge higher premiums to women, even if they are more expensive to insure. Some individual states have passed laws prohibiting gender-based insurance rates for individual health insurance policies - Maine, Montana, and New York are a few. The rest of the states, however, still allow gender discrimination on health insurance costs.

So, what do you think? Is it fair to charge women more for basic health insurance coverage? Age is already a determining factor in health insurance costs, but should gender be a factor as well? Or is this simply a case of health insurance discrimination?