As your constituent and an American Heart Association advocate and supporter of the Go Red For Women movement, I encourage you to cosponsor the Women's Health Insurance Fairness Act (S. 969) to help ensure that women, as well as men, have access to meaningful, affordable health insurance coverage.

Heart disease is the leading killer of American women, and one in three women in the United States suffers from heart disease, stroke or some other form of cardiovascular disease (CVD). That's why the American Heart Association and its Go Red For Women movement have been working to educate women about the need to get screened to find out their risk for heart disease and then to take steps to reduce that risk. Access to affordable, adequate health insurance is critical to help those with heart disease and stroke and those at-risk for CVD to live longer, healthier lives.

Unfortunately, however, some health insurance companies are unfairly preventing women from accessing the health coverage they need by charging women higher premiums than men. In fact, a study last fall found that women pay significantly more than men of the same age for individual health insurance policies providing identical coverage. Higher health care costs, combined with lower average incomes for women compared to men, have real and troubling consequences for women with heart disease and other chronic conditions.

We should be doing even more to encourage women to access preventive care that can help reduce more severe illness later in life, but instead, women are being penalized through higher premiums because they are more likely to have certain chronic illnesses, to see their doctors more often, and to get regular check-ups.

The Women's Health Insurance Fairness Act would prevent individual insurance plans from charging women higher premiums than men because of their gender. I encourage you to cosponsor this legislation and to work to ensure that it is ultimately included in comprehensive health reform legislation considered in the Senate.

To cosponsor the Women's Health Insurance Fairness Act, please have your staff contact Ali Bonebrake with Senator John Kerry (Alison_Bonebrake@kerry.senate.gov or 224-2742). Thank you for your consideration.