Four Things that Are Going Wrong For Uninsured Pregnant Moms in the Middle
I have covered five things that are going right for Moms in the Middle, but there’s always two sides to every story. Despite our best efforts, the current economic downturn has forced more pregnant mothers to face the world without health insurance. It doesn’t seem like it is going to get any better anytime in the near future. There is bad news everywhere you turn. Five of the worst are in this article.
COBRA Subsidy
The stimulus package enacted by the president includes a subsidy of up to 65% of your COBRA . That sounds great, but with an average bill of $1200 a month, you would still owe $420 a month. For someone who is laid off that is nearly an impossible payment to make. So while the COBRA subsidy is a good idea, it is simply not enough.
Clinics and Charities Are Overloaded
Money is pouring into charities in much higher amounts than anyone expected given the current economy. That same money is going back out again faster than it comes in, for the same reason. More and more pregnant mothers are being laid off or just let go.
Clinics have seen an upswing in the number of doctors that donate their time, but even that increase can not stem the tide of new patients waiting for them every day.
HIPAA Is For Hypocrites
While the newest HIPAA laws offer very few women the chance at health care without a waiting period, there are enough loopholes that insurance companies get out of covering many pregnant women who get new jobs. You are doing better for yourself by landing a better job, but getting kicked for changing jobs to begin with. What gives?
Fewer Jobs
Fewer jobs means more pregnant women on the look for work. Many of the employers who are hiring do not want to bring on board an employee who is going to take an extended leave in less than a year. It’s discrimination, but it happens.
Being pregnant and out of work with no insurance is bad enough, but, to make it worse, it seems the chips are stacked against you. We must persevere!
Do We Need Pregnancy Discrimination Laws?
Pregnancy discrimination is a terrible thing, especially when hard-working women are punished in the workplace because they are pregnant. That’s why we need pregnancy discrimination laws – or do we?
In a recent ABC News piece (http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Business/Story?id=7479662&page=3), Carrie Lucas from the Independent Women’s Forum wonders if the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which makes it illegal to fire or refuse to hire a woman because she is pregnant, has actually made it more difficult for women to find and maintain employment.
The irony is thick: anti-discrimination laws breeding discrimination? But Lucas might have a point – since the PDA was enacted, more women have filed discrimination complaints, and employers might be afraid to fire women who are not doing a good job, viewing them as potential lawsuits. Just because the law says employers can’t fire or not hire a woman because she is pregnant, doesn’t mean they can’t find another reason to justify their decisions.
On the other hand, perhaps the law has no teeth – employers are actively practicing pregnancy discrimination because they think it can’t be proven, and they therefore can’t be penalized. This is not a case where you say, “Oh, the law’s not working – they’re still discriminating, so we might as well repeal it.” Instead, the law needs some teeth. But it also needs to be fair – frivolous lawsuits should be tossed; those with merit should be adjudicated.
For large corporations, it might be easy to track and survey with accuracy the number of pregnant women per capita, and their perception of how their firm treated them during their pregnancies. For small businesses, especially those with fewer than 100 employees, this would be impossible to do.
If pregnancy discrimination laws put women at a disadvantage, it is because the laws are not being enforced – NOT because the laws shouldn’t exist.
The $50,000 Baby
The cost of a newborn baby can be as much as $30,000 (http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20090426/LIFE03/904260512/1079/LIFE).
The cost of prenatal care and delivery can be anywhere from $10,000 to $60,000 and beyond.
The median household income in the United States is $50,000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States).
If you have an uncomplicated pregnancy with a normal vaginal delivery, and have two working parents in the household who earn “median” wages but do not have maternity health care coverage, that leaves you with about $10,000 to get through the year. If you have an “average” C-section, that leaves you with $0. And if you have a complicated pregnancy, you could be left $40,000 in debt. And if your baby needs intensive neo-natal care, you might be stuck with a bill of over $200,000.
Putting things in perspective, why should so natural as bringing a new life into the world cost $50,000+?
Another Victory FOR Pregnant MOMS!
On May 11, Moms in the Middle celebrated another victory when the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Kathleen Ryl-Kuchar, a woman whose employer, Care Centers, retroactively canceled her health insurance when she filed for leave to care for her newborn triplets under the Family Medical Leave Act (http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=7th&navby=title&v1=Kathleen+Ryl-Kuchar). Judge Terence Evans wrote that sufficient evidence existed to prove that Care Centers had canceled the insurance as retribution for Ryl-Kuchar’s leave and the Court upheld an earlier ruling that ordered Care Centers to pay Ryl-Kuchar $30,000 to cover her medical bills. Amen!
This is a victory that can be savored, but only temporarily. We can rejoice that the court protected the rights of a Mom in the Middle; but at the same time we must lament the fact that it is so easy for women to be discriminated against. Ryl-Kuchar’s battle was hard-fought and spanned five years of litigation – no easy task, especially if you have no job and three young children to care (and pay) for.
There’s still much work to be done if we’re to prevent pregnancy discrimination where it starts – in the workplace – before it has to go to court. Bearing the burden of proof can seem an extraordinary challenge to Moms in the Middle who fear facing the legal teams Big Business can bankroll. Modern media has many convinced that you can’t win in court against financial powerhouses. But this is an insult to respected justices who can judge a case based on its merits rather than its rhetoric.
Employers and insurance companies must practice equitable treatment. Legislation might protect women from pregnancy discrimination; but only if they take action against it. To maximize the impact potential of law, courts should impose hefty penalties on organizations that practice pregnancy discrimination. If companies do not pay taxes, the government will put them out of business; if companies discriminate, the livelihood of their businesses should likewise be at stake. Operating illegally is breaking the law, no matter what the infraction is.
Let’s hope that would-be discriminators hear about Ryl-Kuchar’s case against Care Centers, and understand that a similar outcome awaits any organization found guilty of pregnancy discrimination.
The Prenatal Pandemic
While the world scrambles to understand and combat the swine flu, declared an imminent pandemic by the World Health Organization, another pandemic rages on in the United States – and this one is far deadlier.
The growing inaccessibility to proper prenatal care has caused a pandemic of enormous proportions in the United States. Consider that:
- A lack of prenatal care means a baby is three times more likely to be born premature, and five times more likely to die;
- The number of Americans without health insurance that would cover prenatal care has grown by nine million in the last 13 years;
- The March of Dimes gave America a “D” on its recent Prenatal Care Report Card – because a full 12.7% of the 4.3 million babies born in the U.S. annually are premature;
- Over 19,000 babies die within the first 28 days of birth each year in the U.S.;
- Of those deaths, a full 30% are directly caused by premature birth…
- Meaning that premature birth accounts for over 6,000 infant deaths in the United States annually.
A lack of prenatal care leads to premature birth. Premature birth leads to death. A lot of it. The bell sadly tolls for over 6,000 babies each year. That’s more than the death count from the World Trade Center attacks, and this wound is self-inflicted.
Many of these deaths could be prevented with proper prenatal care, yet the U.S. government is more concerned with the swine flu which, as of this writing, has killed one person on U.S. soil. In fact, President Barack Obama has even requested a whopping $1.5 BILLION from Congress to combat the spread of the swine flu.
That kind of money could cover prenatal care for nearly every uninsured pregnant woman for a year. It seems as those who can think for themselves are more interested in protecting themselves from a relatively mild flu than protecting the babies who are unable to think – or speak- for themselves.
Even though a pandemic is characterized by the presence of an infectious disease, how can we be more fearful of a relatively mild swine flu than an epidemic that, in a decade’s time, kills more than 60,000 babies? That’s more than the population of Carson City, Nevada.
Human life is too precious to politicize. It’s time to get our priorities straight. Yes, the swine flu needs addressed. But it’s also time to take care of our nation’s babies. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P_dFD0J47I
Maternity Health
