Being Pregnant and Uninsured: The Obstacles
Being pregnant is never easy. Being pregnant without health coverage is significantly more problematic. The frustrating thing is that no one wants to go uninsured if she has a choice about it, and often women become pregnant unintentionally, so the fair conclusion would be that health insurance companies would be understanding of uninsured pregnant women.
That is not the case.
In reality Getting insurance for pregnant women is problematic. Why? The official explanation is because the pregnancy is viewed as a pre-existing condition, a reason that causes many people to struggle to get health coverage (i.e. if someone has Cancer, getting health insurance and does not possess insurance might prove to be very hard as well).
On one hand, it is possible to understand the insurance company’s perspective: nine months of pregnancy can cost quite a lot: visits to the physician, standard screenings, the risk of complications and not to mention the delivery itself. However, pregnancy is a natural condition, and in this day and age we should expect that there be regulations helping women get health coverage if they discover they are pregnant and do not possess health insurance.
Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case - there is no law requiring insurance companies to help women in this situation. Many women would not even request for a low cost medical insurance but would settle for whatever they get - but alas, even that is not an easy task.
The good news is that there are several programs that offer maternity insurance for women, as well as programs that are insurance-like (which cover the entire pregnancy and delivery) - essentially, these are sufficient.
In our site, The Guide to Health, we provide several articles that elaborate on the options available for women in this condition as well as offer links to one such a program. Hopefully, you, the reader, are not uninsured and pregnant - but if you are, this site can really help you.