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!

Another Glimmer of Hope For Pregnant Women

Remember the huge March of Dimes Report Card that shed light on the pervasive premature birth problem in the United States?  You know, the one that put in indisputable figures the dismal state of our maternity health care system… the one that found that one of the leading factors in the U.S. premature birth rate is a lack of prenatal care?

While legislators finally begin addressing the overwhelming need for proper and affordable prenatal care, some institutions have been offering affordable prenatal care to pregnant women for years.  And the results are just as stunning as the figures in the March of Dimes report.

Take Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital, which last week announced that it had cut premature rates almost by half in the last two decades (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-babies_28met.ART0.State.Edition1.4a5c74e.html).

The information published by Parkland validates the assertion that prenatal care is vital to healthy, timely delivery.  Two paragraphs say it all:

“Dallas County’s public hospital, which operates one of the nation’s busiest maternity wards, cut its rate of premature births nearly in half – to 4.9 percent in 2006 from 9.4 percent of births in 1988.

Parkland officials credited comprehensive prenatal care for improving the outcomes of 16,000 births annually at the hospital, which has the second-highest number of deliveries in any U.S. hospital.”

The statistics are amazing, especially for a high-volume hospital such as Parkland.  And to what does Parkland owe its stellar premature birth rate record?  PRENATAL CARE!

What’s more, Parkland officials say most of their maternity patients are low-income women who either pay affordable $50 co-payments per visit or qualify for government assistance and pay little to nothing at all.

With these figures, it’s no surprise that Parkland is ranked among the nation’s best gynecological hospitals (http://www.usnews.com/listings/hospitals/6740950).  And because Parkland is a PUBLIC HOSPITAL, the hospital’s success in reducing instances of premature births lends credence to the notion that publicly-funded medicine can and does work!

Let’s hope that the news doesn’t fall on deaf ears, that Congress learns from the successes of others and works to provide proper prenatal care to all women, regardless of socioeconomic factors, so America’s future is invested in healthy children.

Maternity Health