Mack’s birth cost us $6000 out of pocket. It sucked. Hard. Mostly because Wynnie’s cost us $1000 with a different insurance company and we weren’t prepared for $6000.

But what the heck with credit card companies, the water company and the bank??? HUGE bummer.
.-= Hyphen Mama´s last blog ..How to guarantee Potty Training Success…. =-.

First of all, “health” insurance is misnamed. It is designed to cover costs that are due to unhealthy states… a bacterial infection, for example.

Pregnancy is generally a condition of health, not unhealth. There are exceptions, of course. Pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes… these are state of unhealth that pregnancy triggers. They are NOT unhealthy in themselves, as there is nothing a woman can do to make them not happen.

However, refusal to pay for a Rhogam test and subsequent adminstration of the shot doesn’t fall under “healthy” or “unhealthy”. It’s a reasonable action to take given known factors. There is no reason why insurance should not cover this. It is in their best interest to do so.

Had you delivered Everly “normally” — that is, in a hospital, you would not have to be fighting some of these things. Your choice to go outside the “normal” guidelines has led to scrutiny not applicable to a hospital delivery.

This is completely unfair and unconscionable. It is also a precursor to the “guidelines” that will be implemented if/when universal health coverage is enacted.

I support your decision to have Everly delivered by a competent and caring midwife. Now that I’ve seen how wonderful it was for you, I can’t imagine it happening any other way. And I find it incomprehensible that your insurance would not pay for your much less expensive choice of childbirth. Somewhere there is a “does not compute” module.

Had my daughter chosen the same delivery regimen you did, there is no doubt in my mind that a competent midwife would have recommended a C-section for her. In fact, I think a midwife might have recommended it sooner than the physician did, thus sparing my daughter some of the after-effects of trying too long for a vaginal delivery.

Insurance is misunderstood by most people. It is not a guarantee of payment for any given procedure. It is a bet. Insurance bets you won’t need it, you, by paying your premium, bet you will need it. It is a given that the insurance company will decide you didn’t need it. This is reality, but it is not fairness. Reality and fairness seldom coincide.

Insurance bets that most women will deliver in a hospital where the cost for Rhogam testing and the shot is included in the “procedure” of delivery. You went outside the “system” and therefore must prove the efficacy of any procedure.

I hope that you understand that your lack of insurance coverage for your “choice” of using a midwife will be magnified by universal, single payer coverage.

Anyone reading here who has also read my blog will doubt that I am a conservative. That doesn’t mean I’m a Republican… that’s an entirely different thing. I have little use for religious qualifications as requirements for political identity.

I am a secular conservative, which is sometimes a difficult tightrope to walk. I think you, Talina, should have every right to choose the time, place, and circumstances to give birth. Your body, your baby.

You should not have to pay extra for your choices. That violates my political preference of conservatism., which states that you are capable of making your own decisions.

This is why I oppose universal health care and single payer for health care. It’s perhaps difficult to perceive at first… but ultimately it results in not allowing individual choice.
.-= Donna B.´s last blog ..Not-So-Fun Activities Of The Last Two Weeks =-.