We're not paying for that.
I’m about to lose my group health insurance through my employer. The rates are going up 35% for a $6,000 deductible HSA plan. The company cannot afford to pay it, and we have dropped below the minimum number of employees that have it to keep the group rate. I’ve been having to look into getting an individual plan for myself and K-Kitten. My employer is trying to work out a plan to give us additional pay or incentive to be able to afford individual insurance, since they would no longer be paying for our benefit or putting $2,000 a year into our HSA funds.
Individual insurance has so far been significantly cheaper. The group plan was costing about $370 (my portion and the company portion) per month with a $6,000 deductible. Really it did no good unless it was preventative or a very, very bad visit, but I had rather have it than not have it. In 2009 when I found out we were having K-Kitten it was very fortunate that I had it (deductible was only $4,000 then). It saved me from having to pay upwards of $16,000. I’m still paying the $4,000 off though.
For an individual plan I could get a plan that would allow me to continue to have an HSA and cut my deductible down to $3,000 for $310 dollars a month. But there’s one thing…
No maternity benefits. Period.
They’re making their money by selling you insurance they hope you’re not going to use. As a female, they expect that you will be having or wanting children and they don’t want to spend the money on that. They now specifically state that they will not cover any visits, tests, or anything relating to labor and delivery. As a matter of fact it gets it’s own statement on the quote. “Maternity Coverage: Not Covered”
A lot of the plans, including the one I mentioned above, maternity coverage can not even be added. The plans that do allow it to be added, are non HSA, require the highest deductible, are only at best 80/20 or 70/30 plans and raise the premium by almost $75 dollars a month.
Better yet, there’s a 12-month waiting period in my state. Meaning they would not have to cover any maternity related fees if the child was determined to be concieved (not delivered) before the 12-month waiting period is up.
Now, we weren’t planning on adding to our family just yet, but it’s something that has been on my mind. We don’t want to wait too long if we decide that we would like to expand. Seeing this just started to make me wonder, how could people that make too much money to qualify for state assistance, but not enough to pay $10,000 in medical bills, but they could otherwise afford to care for another child, ever have children.
I don’t like that the fact that my health insurance can choose to not provide coverage to pay for over-inflated medical costs like childbirth. The closest free standing birth center to me is over an hour away and even then several thousand dollars will be hard to swallow, but it would be manageable (provided no unforseen complications arose). Just because we are women does not mean we should be denied access to coverage.
I started doing research on independant supplemental maternity insurance, and while in 2009 I remember there being plenty of companies offering it, now they’re few and far between. Even those look shady and not really a company I would like to do business with.
Women already pay upwards of 20% more than men for health insurance, now we will have to pay even more to have children. Either we’ll be paying higher premiums (if we can get coverage added) or higher hospital bills. Sure, they’ll cover well-child visits as preventative, but they will not cover anything until you go home after childbirth.
Has anyone else been in this situation? Did you end up with mountains of medical bills? Did you have maternity coverage that didn’t exactly cover what you thought it would?
