Insurance Companies: Get Sterilized and Then We'll Cover You

I'm a little confused... Where in this story was this woman FORCED to take any of the insurance she's had in the past. She CHOSE to buy into the insurance with the $5000 deductible. Now that this doesn't fit into her plans, she's angry at "them"? Wow, what a spoiled child she is. Also, she made this decision some time ago and her solution is now, "Let the government take care of it?" Again, spoiled child looking for a handout. Good job, Barry, on teaching another American citizen that the answer to all their problems is a government handout.

Wow!

P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C!

Insurance companies telling you what to do with your body so you can get coverage sounds like communisum to me! and the right want to say democrats are communist WAKE UP PEOPLE!

Now that this doesn't fit into her plans, she's angry at "them"?
Nancy Dickinson | Oct 15, 2009 10:54:46 AM

In every other first world nation in the world, health insurance would not be an overriding factor in whether or not to have a child (and it should be noted that in almost every first world nation, the birthrate is below the replacement rate - overpopulation is NOT a problem in the first world and kids to parents who want them are an unmitigated blessing).

It is not unreasonable to be a bit annoyed that your country is behind every other first world nation in existence in the area of health care.

Why didn't SHE get a job that had benefits? I did that when I wanted to have a child years ago.
It didn't pay much, but I had the benefits in place BEFORE I needed it.
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We do need health care reform, of course. Even if we had the public option, the health care industry will still have the same old problems such as described above.

Our politicians need to get out of the pocket of the health care industry.
Apparently, our politicians cannot govern AND continue to take huge contributions from industries such as health care and also from banking institutions. I bet the auto industry also doles out huge contributions as well.

The story is highlighting the rediculousness of insurance policies for health care. So many people compare it to car insurance, but you don't have to have a car. You have to have a body, so there is no comparison.

A woman cannot get health insurance if she is pregnant. Period. In any state. If she makes too much money she will not qualify for medicaid. All she can do is attempt to get the hospital to write off the bill, after creditors have been handed the debt and hurt the credit score (a highly flawed number that affects how much you pay for anything on credit, whether you get a job or promotion, and even whether you can rent an apartment or get a monthly service like a cell phone).

As far as getting a job herself, perhaps she had no employable skills to get a job with benefits. They are few & far between anyway, and as her husband's group policy shows, they are often too expensive to take - you need to pay for your house, food, and clothing, after all. Besides, you must work for a year full-time, at a company with more than 50 employees, just to qualify for FMLA, and that leave is unpaid so you still have to plan how to pay your bills in those 3 months, how to negotiate time off for well-child visits, a sick baby, etc. I was once fired for taking lactation pumping breaks because I also had hour restrictions at the one daycare I could afford, and my employer only held a policy at the discretion of the supervisor for employees that had been there less than 1 year (10 months when I had my daughter) for up to 12 weeks unpaid. They wouldn't let me take those breaks unpaid and listed my firing as due to "performance issues" even though my productivity had actually increased upon my return.

Women are treated unfairly in the workplace and by insurance companies because of their ability to have children, because they are women. That's what this is pointing out. We're so far behind the rest of the world, which sees healthcare as a right and not a privalege. Insurance is for the hypothetical catestrophic and not the routine, and the routine has become out of the price reach of most people, so other nations cover health care rather than let insurance companies fix costs. I'd pay 30% tax on income for FREE healthcare, since it costs that much for insurance anyway, PLUS co-pays and deductibles.

Forgot to mention, I could only afford to take 4 weeks off when my daughter was born, and had to get a waiver from the doctor to the daycare so they would let her in at 3 wks old.

You know, healthcare does need revamping, it needs to be not government but free enterprise, but the largest problem, parents or parents to be, if you can't afford to have a child, then don't, and if you do anyway, don't expect someone else, or a company to pay it for you. Being a responsible parent and citizen means making informed decisions, and using common sense. My dad once said, if you can't pay cash, you can't afford it or don't need it right now.

Nancy Dickinson, Please read the story and
comprehend it,this happen in 2006! Typical
Neocon, see if the insurance pays to fill in the
vacuum between the ears. |

You ever see the movie "Idiocracy" ? Poor people can get medicaid, many hard working middle class people put off having children until they can afford it. If we allow insurance company's to punish the working class then just the uneducated poor will have the most children and we can look forward to a dumbing down of society. Everyone should have health care, everyone should have a choice of children, not because they're rich or poor or just middle class. That's why Universal Health care is so important. No more class structure that encourages failure.

"Insurance Companies: Get Sterilized and Then We'll Cover You" - ABC News

Huuummmmm . . . . that sounds a bit over the top.
I think the insurance companies should have offered a big discount for the sterilization but the policy should not be dependent on it.

: o )

connect the dots wrote: "Why didn't SHE get a job that had benefits? I did that when I wanted to have a child years ago."
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Years ago, such jobs were much easier to find. Since her husband was teaching in a rural school, there's a good chance there weren't any such jobs to be easily had.

I taught in a very-large school system that pays much better and, even in retirement, a family's max. premium for top-notch, NO deductibles insurance will be $368/month in 2010. When I was an active teacher, we took lower salaries to make sure retired teachers got good benefits because we knew we'd be those retirees some day. Fortunately the current teachers in my system still think the same way.

Getting a job with "good insurance" is easier than it sounds, in this day and age......how arrogant of the poster who decried the woman for not getting "better insurance."

Another distorted "news" piece by the complicit main stream press demonizing the insurance industry on behalf of the Obama administration, ala Pravda, Izvestia, or Tass.

If the socialists finally get their "single payer" government run insurance in place, there will be no choice or alternative to what the government dictates.

Pregnancy is not an illness. Its like elective surgery. If you want a kid, you pay for it. Too many freeloaders in this country. Everything I own, everything I do or have done, I worked for the money to pay for it. If you can't afford it, don't do it. Can i go to Hawaii and get my inurance to pay for it?

Interesting reading that "Garden Lobster" says they would PAY the 30% tax just to have "free" health care. I suppose the taxes that they already pay it's quite enough! For years, health insurance carriers would NOT cover simple birth control pills; which made me very angry! Today, with the population explosion, and the extreme cost if something goes wrong with the pregnancy, NOW the carriers are worried about the cost of women having children. There is NOTHING inexpensive to having children. You can't buy car insurance after you have wrecked your car; same holds true to health insurance. One of the biggest problems in getting folks to purchase health insurance is they want "someone" to pay for it. We are a changing world, people! Learn how to navigate through the system.

Certainly appears she brought the situation upon herself through decisions she made.

The author has a clear-cut agenda: Accept state-run health care or risk being ripped off at your peril, or worse. This was a sad testimonial of how journalism has been denegrated to sounding like a papparazzi for TMZ.

The author makes an disconcerting and inappropriate sympathy play for a woman making choices willingly, understanding the details of the plan beforehand, signing on for purposes that were purely financially driven, and whining about it when it no longer suits her lifestyle.

Specifically, when Ms. Buchanan made her choice, she knew the consequences of her decision (basically, bearing a child mostly at her own expense). Despite that, after signing onto the plan, the family made a conscious decision to add to their family.

Such a sad state of affairs the false sense of entitlement in this country. No one owes anyone anything, nothing is really free, hard work is the road to success, and those that whine about not having enough should get off their duffs and earn the funds needed to finance their lifestyles themselves!

Wow, Greg, how does your rant relate to the story? The rest of us are confused. I haven't seen one "wimp" post here, and that includes both sides of the political aisle. Grab the rebar from your bum and let's write objectively and remain on topic.

So, how did you feel about the article, per se? We'd all love to know the answer. If you could please deliver the message more kindly, it would be appreciated.

A nation as wealthy and wonderful as ours should not even have a discussion whether IF the general welfare of the people is contained within the idea of "healthcare." Of course it is. As a people, we should not let others profit from or able to control basic healthcare in this nation. Until we remove from the health equation "profit", then healthcare will always be an expense over and above service for the consumer. What a shame.

Terri, that is an awful truth! I don't understand that method of coverage at all. Stand-out point!

The industry needs to take a hard look at their system as it stands today, but a generic overhaul that will bankrupt the system isn't beneficial to anyone. Moreover, there will remain 16 MILLION citizens without coverage. Increased spending, still uninsured citizens, and many more reasons NOT to have government-run health care.

Let's start with tort reform and move from there. Savings from this reform alone could be almost $1 TRILLION.