Re: Insurance Companies Won't Cover Cesarean Moms - Page 2

[intorainbowz]

Find me an unbiased review of other countries medical system please. Michael Moore is SO not a reliable source for anything.

Applejuice's comment of "and she should be expected to pay" has had me thinking. WHY on earth would you consider a c/s something a woman should pay out of pocket for but not say carpel tunnel surgery or quadruple bypass? Just because you don't agree with the surgery does not mean women should be punished. And FTR, I've stated I wish insurance companies would pay for home births.

[janasmama]

Originally Posted by intorainbowz

As for making medicine non-profit, then why would drug researchers research new medications, and why would doctors go to med school if they could not expect a return on their investment of time and money into their training? I don't think most people are that altruistic.

not-for-profit doesn't mean people don't get paid. There should be some kind of cap on the income these people can make off of sickness and surgeries when patients are at their mercy.

[wombatclay]

Oh, I'm not saying Sicko is an accurate picture of medical systems (my dh is Irish, I'm familiar with non-us medical systems). Hence the " "

However, the US medical system certainly isn't topping any charts. And when an insurance company can make this sort of decision it's unlikely that we'll be improving our standard of health care any time soon.

[gemasita]

I didn't know what I thought about socialized medical care until I read "Born in the USA" and Marsden Wagner pointed out that every industrialized nation that ranks better than us with respect to childbirth has socialized medical care. Makes you wonder....

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by intorainbowz

...and why would doctors go to med school if they could not expect a return on their investment of time and money into their training? I don't think most people are that altruistic.

Doctors would still get paid in a non profit system. Besides...I'm not convinced that a doctor who figures he gets more money by doing more things to my body is necessarily going to give me great care, yk? I'm spoiled - my family doctor (from birth until my mid-20s, when he retired) was originally a plastic surgeon in LA. He thought he'd be helping people with congenital deformities, and repairing accident damage. He made good money...then, he chucked it all to come here and be a family doctor, because it was more rewarding - less lucrative, but more rewarding.

Talent may go where the money is - but so does a lot of non-talent. Personally, I'd rather have a doctor who felt he/she had a calling to the work, than a doctor who was told he'd be able to take Wednesdays off to play golf, and buy a Jag...

[rozzie'sma]

I do not think that insurance companies should have the right to exclude anyone based on pre-existing conditions or to be able to deny a needed surgery. But I say this as the mother of a son with multiple heart deformities that got a bill for $130,000 because my insurance did not think the hole in my sons heart was big enough to need to be closed. It took my six months and 2 medical review boards to get that approved. Insurance companies should not have the final say in a persons treatment plan.

[applejuice]

Originally Posted by intorainbowz

Applejuice's comment of "and she should be expected to pay" has had me thinking. WHY on earth would you consider a c/s something a woman should pay out of pocket for but not say carpel tunnel surgery or quadruple bypass? Just because you don't agree with the surgery does not mean women should be punished. And FTR, I've stated I wish insurance companies would pay for home births.

This is the question I was answering:

Originally Posted by Poogles0213
But shouldn't every woman be able to give birth the way SHE wants to?? ....

A woman should be able to give birth the way SHE wants to, and pay for it.

As long as women who "elect" to have a home birth have to pay for it out of pocket, then women who "elect" without a medical reason to have a caesarean section should have to pay for it. Who is being punished here?

I am old enough to remember when all childbirth was paid out of pocket since few or no insurance companies paid for it. Insurance only paid if the mother developed eclapsia, pre-eclapsia, or had a life-threatening illness necessitating a caesarean section. Childbirth was not considered an accident or an injury. In those days, there were fewer tests, fewer procedures, fewer surgeries and caesareans, and less cost. And new mothers actually spent seven days resting in the hospital and most middle class people could afford it.

When my mom had her children at home, the neighbors thought my parents could not afford the hospital. After all, a hospital birth was convenient, cheap, and mom got some rest before she came home. No longer.

[CanidFL]

This article has nothing to do with elective c-sections. This article is about insurance companies not allowing women with prior c-sections to get a policy with private health insurance.

This is the article from New York Times I read a couple days ago:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/01/he...in&oref=slogin

She was turned down because she had given birth by Caesarean section. Having the operation once increases the odds that it will be performed again, and if she became pregnant and needed another Caesarean, Golden Rule did not want to pay for it.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, which has about 300,000 members with individual coverage, used to exclude repeat Caesareans, but recently began to cover them — for a 25 percent increase in premiums for five years.

Reading things like this makes me want to pack my bags and move back to Canada. Not everyone can get group health insurance here. Heck, even DH and I will need private insurance in about 4 years once he is doing well with his business. This is scary! Are we going to be able to get it? I don’t have a previous c-section but I used to smoke, my BMI is overweight and we don’t vax. What is to stop the insurance companies from denying us coverage? NOTHING!

Every single American deserves coverage and when health insurance companies pull crap like this, all it does is increase their pockets and break the average working class parent.

It saddens me that I live in a Country where people can’t get health insurance because they have HIV, a heart defect, and now….a previous c-section.

I know many people aren’t for universal health care but I am all for government regulated health care. Someone needs to put a stop to this. Now. I know sicko is biased and paints a rosy picture of other countries but how could you watch that and not cry when the poor 9/11 firefighter couldn’t afford a $300 asthma inhaler that was only 5 cents in Cuba? Or when the women lost her husband because they wouldn't pay for the surgery?

Sorry to go off on a rant but this article really got to me. We have a c-section rate of 37% in the country. That means 37% of moms are now ineligible for private health insurance. If that doesn’t upset people….I would love to understand why not.

[Kitten]

I didn't have time to read the article before I posted and was going on what other people here had posted. My bad.

But really, insurance companies deny coverage for people for all kinds of reasons (not that that makes it one bit better). Basically, the only way you can get an individual policy is to be in perfect health and have always been in perfect health. Here in WI you can't get an individual policy if you are currently pregnant when you apply. I *think* an insurance company can also dump you at any point if you become too expensive for them too (except group policies).

[Kitten]

Just wanted to add, their name is Golden Rule? We truly live in the age of irony.

[felix23]

Originally Posted by applejuice

This is the question I was answering:



A woman should be able to give birth the way SHE wants to, and pay for it.

As long as women who "elect" to have a home birth have to pay for it out of pocket, then women who "elect" without a medical reason to have a caesarean section should have to pay for it. Who is being punished here?

I am old enough to remember when all childbirth was paid out of pocket since few or no insurance companies paid for it. Insurance only paid if the mother developed eclapsia, pre-eclapsia, or had a life-threatening illness necessitating a caesarean section. Childbirth was not considered an accident or an injury. In those days, there were fewer tests, fewer procedures, fewer surgeries and caesareans, and less cost. And new mothers actually spent seven days resting in the hospital and most middle class people could afford it.

When my mom had her children at home, the neighbors thought my parents could not afford the hospital. After all, a hospital birth was convenient, cheap, and mom got some rest before she came home. No longer.

Just curious, how old are you? I only ask when one of my great-grandmothers gave birth during the early 1920's she was at a hospital and the company my great-grandfather worked for covered it. My great-grandparents were poor, so there is no way they could have payed for it out of pocket. She was really relieved to get to give birth in a hospital because she had seen so many people die or have their babies die when they delivered at home. One of my other great-grandmothers lived in the rural mountains of TN she had to give birth at home during the early 1900's because there was no hospitals around and plus they were way to poor to afford a hospital stay. Giving birth was considered extremely dangerous and many people died. My grandfather was the youngest and he remembered several of his older sisters dying while trying to give birth. At least in my family history birth wasn't an accident, but it was a very dangerous, risky event.

I strongly feel that insurance companies should pay for home births if women want them, they should also cover c-sections. Many people would consider me to be having an elective c-section because it is going to be planned, but with the type of cut I have and other reasons, I am just not comfortable with a VBAC. I'm lucky that my private insurance is going to cover it, and I would hate to have that option taken away from me.

[tanyam926]

How about the insurance companies make drs. w/out of control c-section rates pay higher premiums for malpractice insurance?

I also think that if a drs. oath is to do no harm, to help, etc. then they should not be doing any procedure that has potential risks to a patient when it is not needed. No matter if the woman wants it or not. KWIM?

[applejuice]

Originally Posted by felix23

Just curious, how old are you? I only ask when one of my great-grandmothers gave birth during the early 1920's she was at a hospital and the company my great-grandfather worked for covered it..

Do not know where or when or at what your great, great, great...grandparents worked or lived, but health and dental insurance were not very common as packages for employees until WWII when wage and price controls were in place. This grew in the 1970s with the wage and price controls then. This was a way to keep good employees since it was not lawful to give good employees a raise.

I am 54. Few people had health and dental insurance that cover maternity issues until the 1980s. The health insurance that my husband had for us at work in 1980 only covered complications of pregnancy and emergency caesareans; it never covered anything that I had or my children had. Your grandparents probably had lots of complications which were covered. Honestly, most people really do not have that many complications of labor and pregnancy.

My father was born in 1914 at home, the youngest of six in Ohio. The family paid the midwife with a loaf of bread. My mom was a forceps delivery in a hospital in Boston in 1933; it was at the hospital my grandmother worked at as a nurse.

I know what I was told in 1980 and after when I had my children. "If you want to have a homebirth that is your business, so pay for it yourself. If you have a problem, that is your fault."

No one ever apologized to me. I am quite tired of being dumped upon, but being depended on to pay for other people's problems.

[wombatclay]

I also think that if a drs. oath is to do no harm, to help, etc.

Random aside, but the "oath" is actually optional, and there are literally dozens of different versions of the the oath that a doctor can take. It's true that most medical school graduates do, in fact, take some sort of oath. And many of them do try to "cause no harm". But it's not really as "binding" as most people seem to think it is.

[applejuice]

The oath is ceremonial at best.

[felix23]

Originally Posted by applejuice

Do not know where or when or at what your great, great, great...grandparents worked or lived, but health and dental insurance were not very common as packages for employees until WWII when wage and price controls were in place. This grew in the 1970s with the wage and price controls then. This was a way to keep good employees since it was not lawful to give good employees a raise.

I am 54. Few people had health and dental insurance that cover maternity issues until the 1980s. The health insurance that my husband had for us at work in 1980 only covered complications of pregnancy and emergency caesareans; it never covered anything that I had or my children had. Your grandparents probably had lots of complications which were covered. Honestly, most people really do not have that many complications of labor and pregnancy.

My father was born in 1914 at home, the youngest of six in Ohio. The family paid the midwife with a loaf of bread. My mom was a forceps delivery in a hospital in Boston in 1933; it was at the hospital my grandmother worked at as a nurse.

I know what I was told in 1980 and after when I had my children. "If you want to have a homebirth that is your business, so pay for it yourself. If you have a problem, that is your fault."

No one ever apologized to me. I am quite tired of being dumped upon, but being depended on to pay for other people's problems.

They worked for a mining company in Arizona. The company covered all their medical care. She had, I think, 16 children with no medical problems at all. Was never sick a day during any of her pregnancies and had easy births. For routine check-ups the dr would come to their house, but for birth people were sent to a hospital and the company covered it. When my grandmother gave birth during the 40's and 50's in NC my grandfather worked for the county and her hospital stay was fully covered too. She also had no medical problems. When my mom gave birth during the early 70's my dad worked for a mill and they also covered her hospital stay.



And I'll say it again, I think it is really, really wrong that insurance companies won't cover home births. Everyone should be able to give birth where they want and have their insurance cover it.

[applejuice]

Thank you.

Yes, lots of industries as mining paid for insurance for their employees and their families since it was important to keep them working and on the job. It was for industries as mining that workers' compensation was created and other insurance concerns. Often the son went to work at the same place as his dad and this kept the industry going with such job loyalty.

For my family, this was not the case. My grandfather worked at a milling company in Cincinnati, OH one day a week during the Depression, no benefits. He was able to keep things together because he had working adult children at home with dependable jobs at the P.O. and Ma Bell.

Kaisar Permanente Hospital plans/chains got its start in the late 1920s when President Herbert Hoover sent several families to Arizona and Nevada to build the Hoover Dam to control the flow of the Colorado River. Familes needed health care while living there and were far from their families, so Henry Kaisar, the steel magnate, funded the health care for those families.

My DH worked, managed, and owned part of an electronics refurbishing company. I am glad I never needed the insurance coverage he had as I would have had to be really ill to need it.

[janasmama]

Originally Posted by Kitten

But really, insurance companies deny coverage for people for all kinds of reasons (not that that makes it one bit better). Basically, the only way you can get an individual policy is to be in perfect health and have always been in perfect health. Here in WI you can't get an individual policy if you are currently pregnant when you apply. I *think* an insurance company can also dump you at any point if you become too expensive for them too (except group policies).

Yeah, we have private insurance and it's a pain in the but. We switched from group insurance from BC and tried to get another BC policy and were denied for a few simple issues. So now we Aetna and can't even get maternity if we wanted it. Aetna sucks.

Originally Posted by felix23

Just curious, how old are you? I only ask when one of my great-grandmothers gave birth during the early 1920's she was at a hospital and the company my great-grandfather worked for covered it. My great-grandparents were poor, so there is no way they could have payed for it out of pocket. She was really relieved to get to give birth in a hospital because she had seen so many people die or have their babies die when they delivered at home. One of my other great-grandmothers lived in the rural mountains of TN she had to give birth at home during the early 1900's because there was no hospitals around and plus they were way to poor to afford a hospital stay. Giving birth was considered extremely dangerous and many people died. My grandfather was the youngest and he remembered several of his older sisters dying while trying to give birth. At least in my family history birth wasn't an accident, but it was a very dangerous, risky event.

Birth was considered dangerous by the medical community or people's lack of knowledge. Yes, we didn't have the technology for certain complication so more people died then than they do now but the same goes with all medical complications.

I just want to reiterate that birth is safe and normal.