New state laws protect women
By Leticia Ordaz, KCRA-TV
SACRAMENTO – Effective Sunday, California has more than a dozen new laws, including an anti-bullying law and a new law requiring insurance companies to cover maternity care.
Individual health insurance plans are now required to provide coverage to women who are pregnant.
Currently, in California more than 200,000 women of child-bearing age have insurance plans that do not cover maternity care.
Supporters said the new law will make sure all women get proper prenatal care and have healthier babies.
Women can now take up to four months of maternity leave.
Yeah. And women who are long past child bearing have to pay for it too.
I don’t have diabetes, have no genetic predisposition to it, none of my relatives have ever had it, and I do not do things that put me at risk of having it.
And I pay for other peoples diabetes.
But I am not a selfish person so I don’t complain about it.
The whole point of group insurance and even so-called “socialized medicine” is to spread the risk so that no one individual or family has to lose everything because one of their members has a major medical issue. None of us knows if or when we or a loved one will get a catastrophic diagnosis.
As for paying for maternity care, I see it the same way I see paying for schools. I’m done having kids, and my kids are out of school, buy I want the children in my world to be healthy and educated, so I don’t mind sharing the cost of helping that happen.
Further, as one who does have a catastrophic illness, I am deeply grateful for access to group insurance. We pay a very large portion of the premium, and that’s not easy, but if we had to pay for the care I receive, we’d be bankrupt. Actually, my spouse would be bankrupt and I’d probably be dead.
When it’s you or your loved one who needs the care, your perspective changes. Never assume you don’t have a stake in public health issues.
Maybe if we provide maternity leave for new Moms to start their children down a loving human path we won’t have so many selfish cheap mememememe people in the future.
It appears that none of you has ever paid for medical insurance out of your own pocket before. Or paid your own medical bills without aid?
It’s quite smug to claim that you don’t mind covering other people’s medical expenses because you are an unselfish person. This is about coercive use of force by the Federal government taking what one person earned to give it to insurance companies. It’s an inefficient, unethical system. But I know I will not convince you that there are many better ways of caring for people than running your money through the bloated beaurocracy of government and its insurance corporation cronies.
It appears to me that you know nothing of others insurance situations and you’re filled with hate and ignorance but I know I’ll never convince you that Gov’t run Medicare is much more efficient than for profit heartless ins. companies.
I have been paying my own, out of pocket, no through an employer, for 4 years.
I probably already pay for gender specific things that do not apply to me.
You don’t want pregnant women to be covered? That affects everyone. Let me explain it to you: 50% might get pregnant, the rest might get someone pregnant, and every single person exists because someone was pregnant.
So how dumb is this statement: “Yeah. And women who are long past child bearing have to pay for it too.”
Your mom was pregnant.
It is part of the life cycle, for everyone. Cover it, for everyone.
It amazes me how terrible the health care industry and its supporters are.
Illogical people often ascribe hatred and greed to people who they disagree with. Yet they don’t think that they are being hateful and greedy by demanding that other people pay for their stuff.
Dogula, by definition insurance takes on persons money and pays for another persons expenses. It is kind of the entire point.
Voluntary versus compulsory.
John,
That is not the principle of insurance at all.
The principle of insurance is to pool resources against a risk.
Being pregnant is not a risk nor is having babies. In fact that is an objective. The idea that other people should be forced to pay for it is a principle of socialism.
Where did you get the idea that insurance is a concept derived from socialism? It’s a business principle initially established in England to protect shipping cargo.
Business, I dont have time to get into it. But think about it. A pregnant woman shows up to the hospital in labor: What happens? Does the hospital lock the door and tell her to go away. Nope. So who pays? Thats right, we all do. It is socialism pure and simple but I bet you aint got the guts to tell a pregnant woman to have a kid in a ditch.
I heard that a Santa Clara County employee whose wife gives birth is entitled to 3 months maternity leave to get to know his new child and help the mother. Could this be true? If so no wonder government is going broke.
John,
At least you had enough time to admit that you were wrong and that it is Socialism.
As for throwing her in a ditch surely would agree that there are alternatives.
One idea would be that if the state has to pay the bills than perhaps the state should take the child and put it up for adoption to a responsible family.
If the woman and man are not responsible enough to prevent the pregnancy why should other people have to pay for their irresponsibility?
Isn’t this the kind of thing that would lead people to become dependents of the state? Wouldn’t it help create generations of people that live on government handouts?
I recall John Kennedy when he said ‘ask not what the country can do for you but what you can do for the country.’
In this case wouldn’t that mean be responsible and prepared to raise your children and not expect someone else to foot the bills for you?
Oh business, please let me know the alternative. I would love to hear it. And again you entirely miss the point. People cannot be turned away from a hospital. That means the entire cost is being borne by you. I dont care if the people are responsible or irrisponsible. The hospital is going to open their doors and YOU are going to pay for them. So, the only question is how. Currently the hospital covers the costs of delivering kids from uninsured moms. Those costs are then spread across the bills of the insured. So if I go to the hospital a portion of the costs my insurance company is paying is for that uninsured mom. This is why Barton is one of the most expensive hospitals in California according to my insurance company. Barton does not have the legal right to refuse emergency treatment to the uninsured. Therefore the insured pick up those costs.
Business I see you go to the broad statements about socialism and Kennedy. Why dont you get into the detail about this issue. Lets talk how the costs are actually getting paid and let me know exactly how you propose to pay for the uninsured.
WHY can’t the hospitals turn away patients who won’t pay? Government mandate. Get the government regulation out of the business of medicine and maybe then the hospitals can start running their business like, well, a business! Instead of having to figure out how to function as an involuntary and improperly funded charity.
A HEALTHY, EDUCATED POPULACE! Any other course of action spells doom for our great nation!
“WHY can’t hospitals turn away patients that won’t pay?”…. because the majority of us in America are not psychopathic teabaggers. Get the profit out of healthcare like the rest of the civilized world. Reject the corporate thieves and save money, with better overall patient outcomes at the same time.
agreed. get profit out of health care. access to high level health care is not the privilege of the “rich”. the oligarchy wants things to stay as they are so as to remain controllable on the level that they are benefited…
Okay, so you’re both socialists. Most people in America are not. Why should doctors be forced to give away their services after 12 years of TOUGH schooling? Would you give YOUR services away for nothing? Why should drug companies spend billions to bring out a new drug that saves lives only be sued because somebody misused it and got a lawyer?
Give stuff away free if you want to. But you have no right to force others to give their hard work away. If you try, they will stop providing good service eventually. it happens every time.
you might be wrong re: ‘most people in america are not’…if they understood better that they currently benefit from the mixture of ‘socialism’ into our system, they would not blindly demonize it…
Now Dogula, you are a woman after my own heart. I in fact fired an employee because they didnt have health insurance, received emergency treatment and then still refused to buy health insurance.
But now lets be clear here. You are absolutely comfortable with people dieing at the hospital doors.
You are absolutely right, anything else is socialism. But you have clearly defined the alternative.
Now just to be clear, docs arent giving anything away, in any business there is bad debt and bad debts get covered by paying customers. Its nothing peculiar to health care and it is why the interest rate you pay ishigher than the treasury rate. Its risk. The problem with health care is that those of us that are well are subsidizing the uninsured sick and the insured sick.
It’s still a matter of giving services away voluntarily as opposed to compulsory taking by government.
Isn’t FOOD more important to health and survival than medical care? By the same logic, government should provide everyone who needs it FREE FOOD! Farmers should be forced to grow crops and give them away for free. Get the profit out of food production!!
(sarc)
Dogula, a person can get food out of a garbage can behind Raleys. Its not hard. So no, to a person with cancer medical treatment is more important. Food is cheap, cancer treatment is hundreds of thousands. And just to swing this around to the topic at hand, childbirth is about $60,000.
So, you stick with the original premise, it is perfectly okay for a hospital to turn away a pregnant woman even if her and the child die? And that outcome is acceptable because anything else is socialism?
i went for a bike ride during which i thought about this thread, concluding that as long as there is no control of human population growth, health care is situational ethic for us all and we will adopt any position that supports our immediate needs.
John,
Childbirth and pregnancy are choices and cancer is not.
Your argument is flawed is it not?
The position from which you draw your conclusions is outside the logic that Dogula is bringing to the discussion.
Soulless, humorless shells of human beings talk randian twaddle far into the smoke-filled night.
Wow – What’s with the name calling?
Is that how you people here discuss ideas and seek solutions?
I haven’t been on these pages in a while, think I’ll leave the hatred and go back to my books.
maybe there’s something on PubworksTV?
Advocate, yes, FATHERs get to take off work for 3 months to bond with their babies, in ALL companies private and public. Yep , mothers get to take off 3 months after the baby and if they are sick or something before the baby is born they get another 3 months. While business has to hold their job for them, they can have about 6 months off work. We all pay for it. What started out as another good idea has become ridiculous for business. Fathers can take off 3 months and mothers. Gee ain’t that nice. When we were having kids, the economy was better, morals were higher, and dads worked their fingers to the bone to provide, simpler times and now the gov’t got involved telling us that the kids need both their parents. Well mine turned out just fine thank you and I saw them after I worked all day.
Business, sex is a choice that is true. But that is completely irrelevent to what we are talking about. We are talking about what happens when a pregnant woman rolls up to the hospital in labor. Whether she is a trollop or not is wholly irrelevent. The fact of the matter is once pregnant society is going to pay for the delivery if the woman is uninsured. Now Dogula has taken a rather harsh stance to deal with this. She correctly points out that there are two choices, deliver the baby in the hospital or show the woman the door. Dogula is consistent with her politics and has clearly stated she would prefer the woman be refused medical care even if it results in the death of the mother and the death of the infant.
Look, I pay over $15k per year for health insurance. My point is that having uninsured women having kids increases costs of health care to me and increases my insurance costs. Can you argue with that?
“clearly stated she would prefer the woman be refused medical care even if it results in the death of the mother and the death of the infant.”
Not true. I never said that. I said the government has no business forcing hospitals to care for people who will not pay. It does NOT follow that pregnant women would be left dying in the streets if free market forces were implemented.
Why do libs insist on spinning and putting words in people’s mouths?
The uninsured are not mentioned in the article or the new law. From the article: “Individual health insurance plans are now required to provide coverage to women who are pregnant.”
Anti abortion, and willing to show pregnant women the door when they are in labor. Now that would be a crazy worldview. Not for a single payer system, and not for public money being used for contraception and abortion. What solution is there for the uninsured?
Keep on supporting the failed, immoral health care/insurance system we have and call yourself a Christian. Crazier things happen every day.
Dogula, come on now. What then is the other choice? Either the hospital treats her and allocates the costs to paying customers or the hospital declines her and we have a mother having a kid without medical intervention (she is probably actually better off, but thats another story.)So where did I go wrong? Where is this mystical third option?
Clearly this thread has gone on too long because you are forcing us to repeat ourselves from previous posts.
John, there are currently, and always will be, (unless govt taxes them out of existence) charitable funds sponsored by hospitals to cover special circumstances. Not everyone will fall into that category. Not everyone should. There are currently WAY too many people pretending to be helpless just because they are allowed to.
Bring on the insults.
There are no insults Dogula, and you are not repeating yourself, that is sort of the problem. At first you were comfortable with refusing care to a pregnant woman standinging at the door of a hospital. Now we have a charity that is going to pay the costs. Unfortunately I am that charity. I dont choose to be, but the cost of indigent care are added to my bill and that increases my insuracne costs. That is why maternity should be added to insurance and people should be required to purchase insurance. That way the costs are spread across a broader pool of people.
Or we refuse treatment, either is a solution. One works as well as the other. Its just it seems you have lost the courage of your convictions.