It's been a while since I've written a bona fide rant and I've got a doosy that I just can't wait to write--even though it involves making an announcement I was hoping to put off for a little while.
So for those 5 of you who read my blog--there might be one or two that don't know--I'm going to have a baby. Yes, I'm "in the family way", "with child", "knocked up". If it comes as a shock to you--now you know how I feel.
After the initial shock of the fact in itself, I was then greeted with an even bigger shock: my health insurance doesn't cover maternity. So because I work for a very small (2-person) company, I was forced to get an individual health insurance policy with Blue Cross Blue Shield. My generous boss then pays my monthly premium for me. I've had the insurance for 2 years and I've never needed it. I never bothered to pay attention to maternity benefits because I wasn't planning on having kids. Oops. Well, then I find out that now that I am pregnant, there is no insurance company in the country that will take me on with maternity benefits. And, if I had wanted to have maternity coverage with BCBS, my monthly premium would have been $1000/month vs the $250/month I currently pay. Hmm, lets see, an extra $750/month for the minimum of 12 months--that's $9000!! I've been told my non-insurance pregnancy will likely run from $6000-$12000 (the majority of that cost being the hospital bill). So getting maternity insurance may or may not save you any money in the long run. Then I looked at what my insurance WILL cover--I could have elective cosmetic surgery and have the insurance cover part of it---but I can't have a fricken baby!
What's a girl to do? So here's the real kicker. There is a company out there under multiple names: "Maternity Advantage", "Maternity Card", "AHCO" that offers to act as a negotiator on your behalf. So you pay them $750 or something and they try to get you deals with certain providers with whom they have relationships. You pay the difference in the end. So sounds ok at first. My big question was did I have to live in a big city in order to use this service? Unfortunately repeated attempts to email my questions to my "service representative" only resulted in responses that went something like this. "Thank you for contacting Maternity Advantage--check our this link for our customer testimonials" "Watch this promotional video." etc. Never did they answer my questions. My partner even spoke to someone on the phone only to have her change the subject every time he asked a specific question. Then I did a little Googling. Turns out that Maternity Advantage has a unsatisfactory rating with the Better Business Bureau and a lawsuit is pending from the Texas Attorney General charging them with fraud! http://austin.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=40&bbb=0825&firm=53505 or http://www.oag.state.tx.us/newspubs/releases/2008/041408ahco_pop.pdf.
So that's pretty awesome. Take an already shitty situation and make it even shittier by taking advantage of pregnant women. I seriously can't believe that these people are allowed to do business.
And what the f--k America! All we hear is how important pre-natal care is--but if you make more than minimum wage and can't qualify for Medicaid, but don't have employer insurance--you're basically screwed. I thought working for a locally-owned business was good for America. I thought our capitalist society was supposed to support entrepreneurs. Then to add salt to my wound, NPR's been doing stories on health care in European countries. The one this morning was about France and how great their Maternity Care is. But we don't need healthcare reform do we Senator McCain? No, free market that's what we're all about. I'm actually thinking of drafting a letter to Mr McCain. In it I will talk about how I know the Republican Party is for "family values" and against a woman's right to choose. Then I will tell him that because of their brainless, heartless policy promoting insurance companies and killing the middle class--he's right I don't have a choice. I don't have a choice because I can't actually afford to have this baby. What do you think?
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