Health Insurance For Pregnant Women
June 21, 2009 by Theodore Hoffstrader
Filed under Health Insurance
Although it is important for everyone to have a health insurance, it is particularly important in the context of pregnant women. The reason is obvious: there are many things that can go wrong during pregnancy, or could be made better if the woman is aware of certain facts. Therefore, it is essential that pregnant women periodically receive check-ups in order to make sure the pregnancy is progressing properly and there are no detectable problems with their unborn child.
Unfortunately, many pregnant women do not have health insurance. It has been statistically shown that when they deliver, their babies are more likely to have low birth weight and higher incidents of death.
Getting an insurance while pregnant has become significant today because of the towering cost of health insurance in the United States. According to the American Health Association, 41 million Americans are not insured, and around 13% of pregnant women in the country do not possess any form of health insurance. This puts these women and their unborn children at risk.
Furthermore, if a pregnant woman does wish to be regularly checked, even without health insurance, this could become a very expensive procedure. Prenatal checkups are very expensive, and hospital and delivery charges could easily cost more than $10,000. If there are any complications (i.e. premature birth, cesarean section surgery), the costs could become significantly larger. Thus, it is absolutely crucial for a pregnant woman to obtain health insurance.
The problem is that most companies do not accept new insurance policies from pregnant women whose pregnancy has been assessed as a pre-existing condition. Ideally, if you are a woman and you know you wish to get pregnant, things would be much easier for you if you got health insurance before you got pregnant. That being said, if you are uninsured and found out you are pregnant, here are some useful tips that could help you obtain health insurance:
First, try and obtain quotes from as many health insurance providers as possible. This is possible through the internet. Although many may reject you, it is likely that at least some will offer pregnancy health coverage and discounted health coverage.
Second, there are some federally funded programs which offer healthcare coverage for low income people. Medicaid, for example, allows you to enroll in a health insurance plan even when you are pregnant. An additional program is CHIP. Some states have specialized programs for this purpose: investigate whether your state offers one.
Third, check with other agencies. For example, WIC is a federal agency that enables low income women and children under 5 to obtain health services.
Finally, if you are in a position where you have several options, make sure you choose your plan carefully: choose the plan which covers all the benefits you may require. For example a hospital-only plan will not cover visits to a physicians clinic.
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