Birth Insurance

I ran across an editorial by Clarence Page today in which he describes the "horror" of a friend of his being denied insurance coverage of the birth of her child:

My friend Sarah Wildman learned the hard way. She's a new mom with what she calls her "$20,000 baby."

That's how much it looked like she and her husband would have to pay out of their own pockets after her insurer decided her baby was a "pre-existing condition."

... Some of them are women who discover the hard way, as Sarah did, that if you bought maternity coverage after the pregnancy began, the fetus is viewed as an uncovered pre-existing condition.

In the end, Mrs. Wildman ended up paying 10% of the total bill.

Again, I ask myself the question "what do people think insurance is?" It seems clear that Thomas and Wildman think insurance is a system in which other people give you stuff for free, e.g. the $20000 medical cost of child birth. That's a pretty nice system for the insured!

Do Thomas and Wildman really think it is reasonable for a woman to get pregnant, buy insurance right before delivery, have the cost of delivery covered by the insurance company, and then cancel the policy right after that? It seems, based on Thomas' editorial, that they do. Why in the world do they think they are entitled to pass along the cost of child birth to someone else? When they see insurance companies balking at such a thing, they attribute it to "corporate greed!"

Would someone make the same argument about collision insurance for your car? Can you drive around without insurance, get in an accident, then buy collision coverage after the fact and file a claim with the insurance company? Cancel the policy after you receive payment, and you have effectively gotten your car fixed for free. Good luck with that.

Let's take a step back and ask why child birth should be covered at all. Say the average child birth costs about $7500. I can envision getting coverage for costs in access of that, in case there is a problem with the delivery. But really, having a child is the choice of the parents. Pregnancy is not an disease. It is not in any way an accident or act of God that could not have been prevented. Why should people who choose not to have children help pay for the delivery costs of those who do?

Would it make sense to have home owner insurance that covered the cost of a room addition, if the owner chose to add on to his home? I don't think so.