San Francisco's city attorney sues state regulators, saying they approved a system that allows the insurance companies to use 'gender rating' when pricing individual policies.

California insurers are discriminating against women, charging them more for individual health insurance than men, the city of San Francisco maintained in a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the state regulators who govern them.

The suit contends that Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and Cindy Ehnes, director of the Department of Managed Health Care, approved a system that allows the insurance companies to impose "gender rating" when pricing policies, resulting in women paying as much as 39% more for coverage then men.

Ten states outlaw the practice of "gender rating" health insurance rates for individual coverage -- but not California.

The lawsuit is part of a flurry of activity in Sacramento and around the state seeking to end gender rating in health insurance.

Since December, two bills have been introduced in the Legislature to address the issue: AB 119 and SB 54.

If either of the two bills were signed into law, the suit against the state could be dropped, San Francisco City Atty. Dennis Herrera said. "If the law is changed to stop gender rating, then there's really not much need to go through with the suit," he said.

California's state insurance law says gender rating is legal when backed up by statistics.

"Unless otherwise prohibited by law, premium, price or charge differentials because of the sex of any individual when based on objective, valid and up-to-date statistical and actuarial data or sound underwriting practices are not prohibited," the law says.

The Times reported in June that insurers Aetna Inc. and Anthem Blue Cross charged women in California more than men for individual coverage and that Blue Shield of California was about to follow suit.

Blue Shield spokesman Tom Epstein said at the time, "Our egghead actuaries crunched the numbers based on all the data we have about healthcare" and found that women were more accident-prone than men and more likely to break bones or get sick.

"It's all about the statistics," he said.

Blue Shield of California declined to comment on the lawsuit Tuesday.

Herrera said the need for changing the law was urgent.

"A lot of times, women are priced out of private health coverage because of the discriminatory practices by insurance companies," he said. "This means women have to rely on public hospitals and clinics, and over the last few years we've seen an influx of women who can't afford insurance come into San Francisco General Hospital."

As the economic downtown worsens and the costs of healthcare rise, Herrera said, the numbers of those who can't afford healthcare will grow.

"Our state is really behind the curve on this one," he said. "When women can't afford healthcare because they're priced out of it, they're not the only ones who pay for it. These women have to turn to the public health system, a system that is already strained as it is, and every taxpayer ends up paying for it."

A veteran investigator with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office has sued the county, accusing it of employment discrimination.

Robert Velasquez, who filed the lawsuit last week, alleges the district attorney is retaliating against him for his complaints of racial comments in the office since 1995 and for giving testimony in another lawsuit involving gender bias that was filed by former district attorney investigator Tammy Schweitzer in 2007.

Velasquez said he recently was transferred to a less-desirable job and is the subject of an internal investigation.

A top official in the department, Chief Assistant District Attorney Jim Ellison, would only say that the office believes that the lawsuit is without merit, and he declined to comment on specific allegations, citing pending litigation.

Velasquez is asking for an unspecified amount as damages for embarrassment, according to the lawsuit.

Velasquez’s lawyer, said Friday that his client was told that they are investigating him because he allegedly handled some evidence improperly.

In the lawsuit, Velasquez alleges that he applied for, and was denied, the position of deputy chief investigator in 1999, 2003 and 2006. He stated that his latest job performance last year doesn’t accurately reflect the quality of his work.

He stated that since 1995 he has been complaining about racial remarks and comments made by supervisors and others at the district attorney’s Bureau of Investigation.

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Reality show staffers have won a rare victory against TV networks and production companies, settling two long-running cases alleging unlawful working conditions for more than $4 million.

The settlement is another salvo in the WGA's ongoing battle to unionize story editors and other creatives in the nonscripted TV arena.

The dual class-action lawsuits were filed in 2005 by several hundred employees who worked in various capacities, including story editors, editors and segment producers, on such shows as "The Bachelor," "Trading Spouses," "Are You Hot?" and "The Real Gilligan's Island." They alleged that Fox, ABC, CBS and various production entities told them to forge time cards and work 18-hour days with few meal breaks.

A Los Angeles judge this week gave preliminary approval to a $2.57 million settlement with Fox Broadcasting and Rocket Science Laboratories and a $1.54 million settlement with ABC, CBS, Mike Fleiss' Next Entertainment and about six other production companies.

"I hope this settlement provides a disincentive to engage in any future employment law violations," said lead counsel for the employees. "It sends a message that this section of the television industry can't make up its own rules."

Fox, ABC and CBS would not comment on the settlement.

For years, workers in the reality genre have complained that production companies overwork them to keep costs low and that as story editors, they help create the plot and narrative of the shows. The WGA initially helped to organize those who filed the lawsuit as part of its campaign to get reality story editors recognized as writers, an effort that has not succeeded despite being a major issue last year during the WGA strike.

"This is an example of a union using the wage-and-hours laws to impose costs on employers in order to gain organizational objectives," said Scott Witlin, senior counsel at Akin Gump, which represents producers and studios but was not involved in this case. "The unions would much rather have these people in their membership, so they're trying to use this case as a kind of bludgeon to intimidate employers."

During litigation, the producers attempted to disqualify some plaintiffs and their lawyers in part because the WGA's general counsel, also serves as a partner at the plaintiffs' law firm. That effort was rejected by the California Court of Appeal.

Settlement negotiations had continued on and off since a March 2007 mediation, with the final details hammered out in December.

If the settlement is approved by a judge, about 400 class plaintiffs will split the settlement purse based on how many hours they worked, with about 20 name plaintiffs receiving an additional $8,250 each.