No, this is not some brave new Gattaca-esque world, where we've decided to hone a race of super humans by selectively weeding out the weaker of the species. This is America, where C-sections occur in more than 30% of all births, and where Colorado mom Peggy Robertson, who is in good health, was told to stop reproducing so Golden Rule Insurance, a subsidiary of United Health Group, could profit from her policy.
Yes, really. Golden Rule was even kind enough to provide unapologetic reasoning in a detailed letter:
"As a general rule, our underwriting guidelines require that we issue coverage with a rider excluding benefits for caesarean section delivery for three years. However, the Colorado Division of Insurance no longer allows us to place that rider... Unfortunately, we cannot collect sufficient premium to offset the risk of paying for a repeat C-section delivery during the first three years of coverage...In order to consider coverage without a rider, we require...some sort of sterilization. "
Translation: Your state forbids us from denying you coverage for a C-section, so we've decided to deny you coverage, period! Oh, unless you get sterilized.
Really, Golden Rule Insurance? You're really going to stand by a policy that could potentially deny 1 in 3 women coverage, based on the fact that they've had an extremely common medical procedure, and might have it again?
Last Thursday, when Robertson shared her story with the Senate's HELP Committee hearing, Senator Mikulski called Golden Rule's actions "bone-chilling" and "morally repugnant." In the same hearing, Robertson detailed how another company denied one of her son's health insurance for holding his breath during tantrums and for being "too small." Yes, really. Apparently, children shouldn't be small anymore if they're going to qualify for health insurance!
If we've created a system in which healthy women, too small children, and regular, hard working Americans are denied insurance, then who exactly qualifies for coverage? The people that don't need it? That's some system.
