State to require health insurers to collect demographic information

September 11, 2024 Brooklyn Eagle Staff

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STATEWIDE — THE STATE’S DEPARTMENT of Financial Services on Tuesday proposed a new rule that would require health insurance providers to ask customers for information on race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality and preferred language, reports Gothamist. The new rule is an effort to improve healthcare equity by identifying disparities in access to and usage of care between different groups. While insurers would be required to ask these questions, New Yorkers would still be allowed to opt out of answering. Commercial health care providers are currently prohibited under state law from asking about race on applications, a regulation intended to prevent discrimination but which could be obscuring differences in outcomes. DFS superintendent Adrienne Harris told Gothamist that her office has found that efforts to address potential inequities within the commercial health sector were “not systemic, not robust, not consistent across the industry,” and said that while concerns about discrimination arising as a result of the data collection were valid, the potential benefits are stronger, including better allocation of resources within health networks and the addition of support services for groups with barriers to access.

The proposed new regulations would still bar insurers from using protected characteristics to set rates and from selling the data or using it for marketing. The public will have 70 days to initially comment.

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