America's pregnancy scare

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

By Grace Hammond

Jackson Hole, Wyo.- Raising children isn’t cheap. Expectant parents start the college fund early, scrimp for a car seat, crib, bottles and clothing. But these days, such expenses (while often considerable) are just the trimmings. In the current health care climate, it can easily cost a regular family more than their car or house just to bring a child into the world safely. Increasingly, American families are paying off their babies alongside their mortgages.

In this week’s cover story, “Bankrupt for baby,” a local insurance agent emphasizes: “Things have changed,” especially in the past five years. The insurance policy you hold today - if you are lucky enough to have one - would be unrecognizable compared to the one your mother held when you were born. Pregnancy and maternal care now exists largely at the mercy of state and corporate policies - and they’re axing it.

The simplest, most basic biological process that exists - reproduction - has itself been boxed in by legislation, crippled by exclusionary clauses and complicated by programs that comfortably compare wanted pregnancies “to any other illness” while simultaneously denying them coverage (see the Wyoming Health Insurance Pool’s brochure).

“What we’re seeing in Jackson is a microcosm around the rest of the world,” a county employee said. “It’s the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots.’”

One source mused: “You wonder who should subsidize these costs. Should the government pay for businesses that don’t want to offer benefits because they can’t afford it, but who chose to set up in a place like Jackson, with a sky-high cost of living but a rich customer base?”

Everyone, from the tiniest newborn to the most sprawling bureaucratic organization, is affected when these benefits disappear. And while everyone is involved, some are complicit.

Monday, the President released his latest 2009 budget, which sought to “reduce by $196 billion … the two entitlement programs that provide most of the medical care for the nation’s elderly and poor” by freezing the rates paid for “hospital, nursing home and hospice services” over the next three years, according to the AP.

If this succeeds, Bush could strut out of office having strong-armed care from a complete set of vulnerable Americans: sick children, pregnant women, the poor, the elderly and the dying. “Whatsoever you do for the least of my brethren, you do to me,” indeed.

There are, of course, the million dollar questions: How do we keep public benefit programs salient? Someone always pays when Americans are uninsured - who will it be? The sick? The hospital? The workplace? The insurance companies? The government?

The nation is in for bruises and black eyes as these parties duke it out, dragging the poor, the sick and the vulnerable into the crossfire while they battle to a conclusion.
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America's pregnancy scare | Planet JH News Article: Editorial

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