Just Being Alive Will Soon Be a Pre-Existing Condition

Domestic violence isn't a subject I talk about much, but it's something I feel very strongly about because I have a very personal connection to the topic.

I was a victim of domestic abuse.

Many, many years ago I was married for a very short time when I was an incredibly young (19) and stupid college student (while 19 might be a good age for some to marry, it was not a good age for me).

I was smart enough, however, to get out of that very brief marriage quickly before I suffered too many injuries. But it was scary -- I had bruises from being pushed down stairs and I was anxious about lying to cover up why there was a big hole in the wall (where my ex-husband kicked it in in a rage), among other things. When he pulled a butcher knife on me when I said I was leaving, I really knew it was the right choice to save my life. But I was terrified that he would come after me and hurt me more. He tried, but I was lucky that I had friends who sheltered me and kept me safe, even when I had to go to work.

I recovered from the few physical injuries I suffered without any medical attention. But a lot of women aren't so lucky. So when I read a report this week from the SEIU that a variety of states allow insurance companies to refuse to pay for treatment of injuries suffered as a result of domestic violence because they are deemed a pre-exisiting condition, I pretty much lost it. Some states make it illegal for an insurance company to do that, but there are still eight states and the District of Columbia that permit insurance companies who cover individuals there to carve that out as something not deemed worthy of coverage.

I knew decades ago, as many women still know today, that you can get all the protective orders you want, but depending on where you live police are slow to enforce them or take them seriously. So if a woman (or, I'm assuming, even a child) who suffers a black eye or a broken arm or worse because it's not the first instance of domestic abuse, certain insurance companies won't pay for it?

If that fact alone isn't a call to action, I don't know what is. The President has said he wants health care reform and he's claimed he wants to put issues that impact women and girls in the forefront. When she spoke at Netroots Nation, Presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett, who chairs the White House Council on Women & Girls, answered my Twitter question about whether the goals of the Council were still a priority, assuring us that Barack Obama would keep pushing for those goals and that the Council's work was on the front-burner.

Two of the Council's stated goals are:

• Working hand-in-hand with the Vice President, the Justice Department's Office of Violence Against Women and other government officials [will] find new ways to prevent violence against women, at home and abroad.


• Finally, the critical work of the Council will be to help build healthy families and improve women's health care.

Call me crazy, but I don't think either of those things can be accomplished if you've got insurance companies trying to eke out bigger profits on the backs of abused women.

So many people who are against health care reform want to keep the current system, claiming that a public option will result in rationing. But if denying a beaten woman coverage doesn't amount to rationing, what is it? Some insurers have made the calculated financial (not medical) decision that if you are a woman who can't get out of an abusive relationship, you don't deserve medical treatment if your husband beats you.

Before I experienced it, I thought there was no excuse for not getting out -- how could anyone stay? But it's a complicated issue, many times made harder by threats against other people, including children. Or you think it's only going to happen once -- it was an accident, it was something that will never happen again.

And then it does.

I am one of the most fortunate women in the world -- I got out before things got too bad. I scraped together enough money on my then-$120 a week salary to pay for a divorce and got out. I found a job in another state, but I looked over my shoulder for years, never wanting to let down my guard just in case he found out where I was.

Many years later, I met Mr. PunditMom who is the best of all possible husbands (even though I do complain sometimes that he doesn't do his share of the laundry). But I shudder to think about what might have happened if my ex-husband had been able to get to me, notwithstanding all my best efforts to prevent him from hitting me again -- or worse. And if he had, how would I have paid for my medical care if my insurance company had turned its back?

If domestic violence is a pre-existing condition, what's next? If I get a sinus infection this winter that the first round of antibiotics doesn't clear up, is the next prescription not covered? If it's OK for some insurance companies to promote and cover prescriptions or other treatments so men can "perform" when the moment is right, why isn't there a governmental push right now to make sure abused women can get medical treatment?

I wish I could believe there was some answer other than money. But I don't think there is.

Joanne Bamberger is the founder of the political blog, PunditMom. She also writes about politics through the lens of motherhood at BlogHer, where she is a Contributing Editor, MomsRising and MOMocrats. She is at work on a book about political and activist mothers (Bright Sky Press, Fall 2010).

Follow Joanne Bamberger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/PunditMom

Comments

[M1]

In short, the insurance companies aggressively denied pre-existing conditions that affect women and children, knowing all to well that historically the majority of law makers, being men, really don't care about protecting women and children against such abuses.

Easy marks and big profit margins. Completely immoral but very logical given our history. I guess we only have ourselves to blame as a society for it because we allow these sickening abuses to continue year after year, decade after decade.

[regellner]

Well, I guess the insurance argument would be, if you are alive, you will definitely die, therefore it is a pre-existing condition. Insurers practically already do this.
Anyone who has a insurance has the privilege of having his or her claim paid, and the insurance comapnies can revoke the privilege at any time.
If you do have a serious condition and you sue, they just tie things up in court until your condition "stabalizes", in other words, die.

Following is an article on the Baucus health reform plan and its bi-partisan non-support:

http://www.examiner.com/x-11326-Liberal-Examiner~y2009m9d17-Baucus-Plan-for-healthcare-reform-is-a-boon-to-insurance-companies


Raymond Gellner – National Liberal Examiner at Examiner.com
http://www.examiner.com/x-11326-Liberal-Examiner
__________­__________­__________­__________­__________­________

[mergina]

Haaaaaaa. Is there REALLY NOTHING else the President has to do beside feverishly push this futile fight for bogus health care reform. He is starting to sound like a Flim Flam Man. He glosses over the true cost it will be to Americans. He whispers the word MANDATE if he says it at all. He seems possessed by this mindlessness RATHER THAN GETTING AMERICA BACK TO WORK. He is the President for goodness sake, and although he is the Front Man for the powers that be pulling his strings on this issue, one might have thought that he had more VISION or pehaps even MORE CLASS than to lower himself to be the #1 salesperson for the drug industry and the insurance companies.

[davism97]

People are not customers when they walk into a hospital. They do not become patients in order to fill the pockets of business men. Our fates should not be determined by these business men who only want to fatten their wallets. Guaranteed affordable health care for all is the morally right thing to do.

[Deni]

Of course it's all about money - profits. It always is. And until we put people above profits nothing will change. Nothing.

[Trophoto]

Surely the chase for the almighty dollar cannot make that comfortable of a pillow. How do these people sleep at night?

[Rog49Thomas]

They sleep like babies.

And that is the sad part.

A culture and a religion twisted to the false god of Mammon.

[mommaserene]

I support the public option, because I believe competition can't help but be good for the health care system, and because I like my private insurance and don't want to see it go away. I also don't want to see more millions unemployed because the health insurance company they work for was dissolved due to legislation, nor do I want our medical technology fields to suffer in any way.

That said, this is just another case of health insurance companies getting away with literal murder. They have too much power and need to be taken down a notch or two. They've known for 16 years that we wanted reform, and neither the health insurance companies nor the Republicans have taken the initiative to do anything about it. It's time America cleans up its mess and gets on the right track.

[tck29]

I believe we should outlaw health insurance.

Put those good people to work cultivating marijuana. They could potentially save humanity.

[johnsopinion]

I think your headline pretty well says it all.
They will stop with "pre-existing conditions"
wherever they choose.

[caterpol]

So long as our health care is in the hands of for-profitts, this is the way it will remain.

And it's no big secret to anyone in gov't or society, that Wall St. can be trusted to be amoral at best. All investors care about is the bottom line, as they should. For instance, I personally don't buy stocks hoping that they lose money by giving up all their profits to charitable causes----no matter how compelling those causes may be.

The bottom line is that health and medicine should never, ever have been allowed to be turned into some kind of Vegas-style gambling game you can play on Wall St. Health care should always have been, and should always be, treated like a basic social service like fire and police.

[MJinCanada]

Isn't it true that women also pay 30% to 50% more than men for their health insurance?

Not getting fair value for their dollars, are they?

[tbone99]

So many women stay in these situations for the kids- only a small percentage of womens shelters take kids too. To deny a woman coverage in such a situation is immoral. And if the abuser gets the bill- guess who's going to get it taken out of her hide?

How in the world do mean in dangerous jobs like police officers , soldiers and fireman get coverage , considering their risks?

[Ex-Kindergartner]

The occupations you mentioned typically have union membership as a condition of employment. Conservatives like to portray unions as bad guys interfering with capitalism, but one of the important functions unions have filled is forcing protections for workers in dangerous occupations. Health insurance, pensions, disability coverage and OSHA protections are around because unions fought for and achieved these rights.

Still, people in these dangerous occupations live in fear of something forcing them to lose their jobs, just like the rest of us. Try getting coverage then.

[TRex86]

Letting for profit insurance companies dominate the non-medicare market is like making tortillas by feeding corn to a horse. The result is the same. Over the past 30 years the federal government has tried countless crazy ideas to make the for profits act against their raison d'etre--to make profits. It's as though they would become benevolent public service agencies and hold down the double CPI rises in the cost of health care out of good intentions. What they've done is open the way for insurance monopsonies to dominate their markets. What they haven't done is restrain the rising costs of health care. We spend twice what the average European country spends per capita and get worse outcomes.
For profit health insurance is anathema to the purpose of health care. Optimizing profits must necessarily come at the expense of serving the needs of the public. When the goal is to hold down "loss ratios" they will do whatever it takes to screw the policy holders. The least reform of this dismal system would be to acknowledge that insurance companies have a captive market and regulate them as public utilities. Outlawing for profit corporations in this industry would help. The best solution would be to wipe out the insurance industry all together and implement Unicare (Medicare for all).

[tbone99]

yeah , what you said !

[Trophoto]

Well said, Sir!

[AngelaQuattrano]

In 8 states there are no consumer protections that would prevent insurance companies from denying benefits to women who have been beaten by their husbands. Republican solution: remove all consumer protections to bring down the cost of insurance by eliminating these benefits.

[Ex-Kindergartner]

What they are actually advocating is an expansion of the "free market." Under the guise of encouraging competition they are pushing to remove the ability of states to set standards for their own citizens. Oh sure, states could establish a regulation mandating coverage for an abused spouse, but if the Republicans have their way, there would no longer be a requirement that your insurance coverage even come from the state you reside in. The "free market" would allow employers to buy plans for their employees from whichever state has the cheapest companies. If the financial markets are any indicator of what would happen, health insurance companies would flock to states where the rules are loosest.

Did the consumer benefit from credit card companies all moving to Delaware after de-regulation? That mass exodus to a state with lax controls brought us the perilous credit card/debt mess we have today, where companies are free to jack rates up with little notice and/or charge fees for all sorts of "services" you really have no opportunity to do anything about.

[COPerez]

Actual Republican Solution: Make women the property of their husbands.

[tsobserver]

We all die. Let's let that be the only pre-existing condition. And let's take one step. Just one. Let's ban pre-existing conditions. Then let's wait a year and see how that works out. Then let's pick another critical piece and do that. Let's avoid a one-size-fits all solution that overhauls so much it makes bureaucrats quiver in the boots thinking of how hard it will be to implement such a massive overhaul.

[pattio66]

About 12 years ago, my cousin's wife gave birth to their first child. Janey was born with an arm that needed physical therapy because of how she was positioned in utero. Their health insurance company denied coverage for the necessary physical therapy because they considered her injury a pre-existing condition. Thank goodness we have a physical therapist in the family who taught my cousin and his wife the exercises baby Janey needed to correct her condition. How sick is that, a birth defect considered "pre-existing?"

[SeriousBlack]

As sick as our dysfunctional, current health care system.

[Ex-Kindergartner]

The "logical" extension of this policy is to not cover any child at all for anything, since living would be a pre-existing condition by these twisted standards! How horrid! Unfortunately, almost all of us know someone with a real-life horror story involving health insurance. Your story is definitely one of the most grievous, however...