HHS: Health reform to provide coverage for 13 million uninsured women

Data released Thursday by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius showed that 13 million uninsured women will gain coverage by 2016 thanks to the Affordable Care Act.

Even though millions more women will have insurance coverage, an estimated 14.7 million women will remain uninsured.

In addition, insurance companies will no longer be able to charge higher rates due to gender once a provision of the health care reform law takes effect in 2014.

The National Women’s Law Center released a report Monday morning that found health insurance companies have charged women $1 billion more than men for the same premium coverage. Even with maternity coverage excluded, nearly a third of the plans analyzed charged 25 and 40-year-old women were at least 30 percent more than men for the same coverage.

Because of the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for plans to cover essential health benefits, an estimated 8.7 million more women will gain maternity coverage starting in 2014.

The U.S. Supreme Court set to consider whether a key provision of the new law, requiring everyone to buy health insurance by 2014 if they can afford it, is constitutional.

[Sick woman taking her temperature via Shutterstock]