Pregnancy as a "Condition"

If you're at all familiar with health insurance benefits, you probably know that many health insurance providers will not cover pre-existing conditions -- or if they do, you will be subjected to a waiting period and lapse in coverage (i.e., a lapse in affordable treatment) for your pre-existing condition upon acceptance.

What qualifies as a pre-existing condition? Sad to say, but it's many, many things -- diagnosed or not. As defined by the About.com Medical Review Board, a pre-existing condition is "any health condition you already have when you enroll in a health insurance plan or policy." (http://healthinsurance.about.com/od/glossary/g/preex1.htm).

And what is a condition? According to the Medline Plus service provided by the U.S. Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health, a condition is "a usually defective state of health" (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mplusdictionary.html).

Apparently, the operative word here is "usually," as pregnancy almost certainly could not be construed as a defective state of health. In fact, it's quite the opposite as it is the only way to perpetuate the human species. As such, most health insurance providers would consider pregnancy to be a pre-existing condition and deny maternity coverage to pregnant women whenever possible.

While the HIPAA Laws prohibit pregnancy from being considered a pre-existing condition, this only applies to those women who have had insurance without a lapse of 63 days and are switching jobs or health care providers; and not those who previously had no insurance.

Without the means to obtain health insurance or to afford prenatal care, this leads to a severe increase pregnancy-related complications; giving rise to such "conditions" as premature birth, c-sections, disease and even death.

For low income families, state welfare systems often foot the bill for prenatal care. But for middle class families that make too much money to qualify for such programs yet do not have employer-provided health care benefits (or the income to purchase health care themselves), there is little recourse other than to forgo proper care or burden the family with debt with extreme repayment terms that ultimately are unaffordable and wreak havoc on credit scores -- carving a financial hole from which families have little hope of ever climbing out of.

That condition -- the condition of poverty -- is what fuels this vicious cycle. Middle class families without the means to afford health insurance and who have suffered such injustices have realized that they're better off poor, for the sake of their children. How then, can these families be expected to aspire to achieve the "American Dream"?

I am PRO MOM!!!
Aaron Bouren
Advocate Aaron