Women will continue to be denied coverage or charged significantly higher premiums than men in the health insurance market until Congress adopts a national health system reform bill, like the current bill in the U.S. House.

Even women with health insurance report problems affording health care. Unaffordable cost-sharing requirements, annual limits on covered services, or health plan limits on lifetime expenditures have a disproportionate impact on women. They are more likely than men to be underinsured, meaning they have coverage that leaves their financial and physical health at risk.

Due to all of these factors, when women in Kansas are unable to obtain or afford health plans that cover a comprehensive set of health benefits, these same women struggle to pay out-of-pocket for necessary health care services that are not covered by their plans.

As a result, insured women in Kansas not only often delay getting the services they require in order to remain healthy, but they may have to skip important care when they need it the most, even when ill.

Here's the irony - these same women are paying for their health care insurance. These women, who do buy insurance policies, although they "technically" have insurance, still find themselves compelled to often avoid seeking medical services altogether. Their higher priced and fully paid insurance plans go unused.

They cannot afford to use what they have purchased because what they purchased was priced so high it left them with no discretionary cash with which to pay co-pays and deductibles. Then, to add insult to injury, the woman are usually paying a great deal more than their male peers.

Women get punished by this sort of discrimination both "coming and going." How?

Women in Kansas have more trouble affording necessary health care - not just because they are charged more - but also because they are paid less.

Women are generally poorer than men, and in Kansas earn just 74 cents for every dollar men earn, yet, women also use the health care system more, in part due to their reproductive health needs (pdf). Because they are poorer and, on the average have higher deductible plans, women spend a greater share of their income on their health needs. Women are more likely than men to struggle with medical bills or debt, and to report cost-related problems with accessing health care.

In the absence of health reform, more and more women and families will lose their health insurance, with an estimated 50,630 Kansas residents losing coverage between 2008 and 2010 (pdf). Family premiums will continue to skyrocket, reaching a projected $24,377 for Kansas families by 2016.

Women literally cannot afford the status quo. Woman's well-being - and that of her family - depend on health reform that meets her needs.

Women are among those who stand to gain the most from national health insurance reform. Women pay more and women get less. How can this even be legal? Why have we allowed this? Why have we waited so long to notice that our mothers and daughters are disproportionately served by a discriminatory health care system?

It's time that the insurance companies be stopped from jacking up health insurance premiums for women. It's time to end this discrimination of our sisters, daughters, mothers and our grandmothers.

Please note: If it becomes law, the bill currently passed today in the U.S. House, submitted by the House Democrats and headed now to conference with the Senate, will indeed end the discrimination of women.

We can put an end to this tragic discrimination, once and for all. Say "Yes!" to health care for all Americans. Show your support for the Democratic House Bill, H.R. 3961.

The American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have published positions opposing gender rating, like that which Kansas allows.