It makes no sense for any health plan to not pay 100% of the cost of an abortion

If a child is born to a subscriber of a plan the child is going to cost the plan money, providing for abortions saves a health plan (government, private or hybrid) costs.

it's a medical procedure performed by a doctor. should be covered.

Most health plans don't cover those.

My current policy covers abortion in case of life of the mother, rape or incest, and that's it.

What part of women dying from illegal abortions is unclear to you?

Seriously, this place reads just like Free Republic sometimes.

It's not that elective abortions are illegal; just that they are not paid for by insurance.

If a woman wants to use a folk nostrum or decides to procure a back-alley abortion, it's little different from having somebody who's hand surgery or bust enlargment isn't covered using a folk nostrum or trying some off-brand clinic to have the 'work' done.

Some things are deemed medically necessary; some things are elective.

to insurance companies making decisions based solely on finanical interests.

What I said was that I thought we on DU were opposed to insurance companies making decisions based purely on profit motive. Your argument is that they should do it because it is a good financial move, so are we now in favor of insurance companies making decisions based on their bottom lines?

I personally want insurance companies to provide payment for medically necessary procedures.

permanent injury that pregnancy and childbirth has? Every single pregnancy can quickly become life threatening. Abortion is part of a woman's health care options and the reasons for one should be between her and her doctor, not some medical board.

Just stating the fact that except in rare instances, abortion is considered an elective procedure.

***edited to add: Yes, every single pregnancy can quickly become life threatening, in which case my insurance (can't speak for others) covers abortion.

to only be covered if it is medically necessary.

Because I don't want anything covered that isn't medically necessary, cost saving or not.

No cancer screening if there is no reason to believe the person does in fact have cancer?

You don't?

No one goes to get a chest x-ray without symptoms of anything to relieve a medical necessity. Those things are paid for to save costs. Not because it is necessary for the person to have it.

IMO, cancer screenings are medically necessary. YMMV.

Who in the world are you to decide for other women what they need?

If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one.

And unless we want to start a donor-designation system on our taxes (I'll happily opt out of a great deal of the defense budget, thanks, as well as corporate welfare), health care is health care, and decisions should be made on a medical basis, not on a political one.

is medically necessary?

if a woman, in consultation with her doctor, thinks it's necessary, it's necessary.

Pregnancy is a medical condition. If not wanted, it is a condition that may need medical assistance. And it's not your business or mine, unless we are the owner of the uterus in question.

Every single one.

I think it would be fair to cover those cases.

The potential death or health problems exist in every single pregnancy.

If you could drop the hyperbole for just a minute, I'd like to ask a question.

You seem to be making the case that women should have abortions because of the potential dangers, even if their doctor doesn't detect a problem or if they don't foresee one. Is that your position? If not, please explain.

As you well know, I'm in favor of having a plan that pays for abortions that are medically necessary. So we're not arguing about that.

then, yes, she should have access to safe legal abortions. Things can happen during a pregnancy or childbirth that a doctor can't foresee. Why on earth should anybody but the person whose life is potentially at risk have a say in things? That's barbaric.

We're discussing whether it should be part of the coverage in a public payment plan.

So we're back to square one.

But once pregnant, medical care is necessary for the best outcome.

If you're trying to make a point, you should just come out and make it.

If your "it results in a better outcome" applies to covering the medical costs of an elective pregnancy/delivery, then it should equally apply to covering the medical costs of an elective UNpregnancy.

Considering the outcome only for the woman who is pregnant and wants to be gives her preferential treatment over the woman who is pregnant and doesn't want to be, for absolutely no good reason - unless you consider a moral judgment against a woman's right to autonomy over her reproductive choices that may not choose to continue an unwanted pregnancy, a good reason.

I don't. But that is what the "abortion is an elective procedure" is based on. Because other elective procedures are covered. Example: I had a tubal ligation. Entirely elective. Entirely covered.

Yes, I get that it's BETTER for the pregnant mother and the child she wants to have good health care she could not otherwise afford without coverage. So if that's the argument, it would also be BETTER for the woman who does NOT want a child to have abortion coverage to help pay for a pregnancy TERMINATION that SHE could not otherwise afford.

You're drawing the line at a place that fits your comfort zone. On a medical basis there is no difference in the merit of paying for abortion or a full term pregnancy.


eta: I remember when health insurance companies excluded pregnancies under pre-existing condition clauses as a matter of course, and also when they refused to pay visits related to birth control because it wasn't medically necessary. We really don't need to go back there.

But once pregnant, medical care is necessary for the best outcome.

it did cover tubal ligations and the latter was just as elective as the former.

What's that? You're not a physician? Imagine that...

Whom the fuck are you to pretend to be in the exam room with me and my physician? Elective? Oh please, I can't wait for the day until the general population gets in your exam room. Then you could tell us what about your private health care is up for public consumption...or not.

Your prostate exam goes against my religion. My bible is very clear about this. It says that you and your doctor are perpetrating a sin against good believers everywhere. It's right there in the section where Jesus discusses to whom we should deny health care. Don't fight it, otherwise you will go to hell. My reading of a book that has nothing to do with science is all that I need to keep you from obtaining the health care that you need. But don't worry, I'm a values voter.

Let's make sure fertility and impotence treatments aren't covered either because both are elective. For that matter, let's eliminate coverage for pregnancy because no one's forcing women to have children. Oh yeah! Birth control. Totally elective. Tell people to zip it if they can't afford to pay for BC on their own.

maybe we should just pay to sterilize some people and save some real money and protect kids from people who would make bad parents. :sarcasm: Its also cheaper than a woman giving birth so insurance companies should promote abortions!

zero sense for them not to pay for it.

If you assume that the woman won't go out and pay for the abortion with her own money or at a reduced price.

shouldn't be a political bargaining chip.

to actually cure someone of cancer, why treat it? After all, in a great many cases you are only setting the person up for the next round of far more costly and difficult treatments. Based on your logic, we could save alot of money here by just letting them pass, keeping them alive is clearly very expensive. It would not be the moral thing to do, but it would be much cheaper.

Since kids are so expensive and pregnancy a life threatening condition which causes a serious financial burden on our insurance, we could just license reproduction, with the number of licenses available dictated by the available funds in the budget and the licenses issued in accordance with the genetic fitness of the potential parents (to assure lowest costs).

Heck, if cost is all that matters, we could save lots more money by simply not providing care for anything, just let nature have its way.

This entire line of argument is simply lame and ignorant.

;)

I think I read somewhere here that he has referenced this site. Heh.

there are plenty of legitimate reasons for having one.

Now the situation of a one night stand resulting in a pregnancy, should be allowed or have access to the day after pill. But I do not think that that kind of situation should be covered by any insurance.

I am wrong for thinking that?

OMFG, I've died and gone to freeperville. :crazy:

On what planet would a pregnancy remedy irresponsibility?

OMFG.

"You want to punish sexually active women with pregnancy?" Well no. If they have access to the morning after pill, there is no pregnancy.

What IF they don't? Then what?
\
Geezus, Joseph and Mary. Let's make abortions impossible to get so that "irresponsible" young women have children and continue this cycle ad infinitum. To assuage the self-indulgent and queasy among us.

Let's do THAT. Forget about good public health policy that shows that the number of abortions goes DOWN when birth control and abortion are accessible. Let's deny access to abortions. Because punishing others is more important to us than actually reducing abortions. :crazy:

the cost to a health plan of abortion vs. child is a no brainier, the reason for the decision to have an abortion doesn't matter.

interesting article on the subject:
http://open.salon.com/blog/grannypower/2009/08/05/abortion_controversy_threatens_healthcare_reform
Excerpt:
Check out this information from the Center for Disease Control in 2004: "In this report, the abortion rate for the United States was higher than rates reported for Canada and Western European countries."

Does this sound strange? Canada and Western European countries have national health coverage, including coverage for elective abortions. The USA doesn't, yet its abortion rate is higher. One side note, abortions decreased more rapidly during the Clinton Administration than it did during the Bush II Administration.

So let's stop all the arguing for a few minutes and look at the facts.

With guaranteed healthcare coverage, people will have more accessible income to spend to care for their families. They will have a sense of security that they don't have now. When and if an unexpected pregnancy happens, will they be more or less likely to get an abortion in this situation?

Or in a society that has healthcare security, will women have better access to birth control? Will they have a regular doctor who can advise them on reproduction, either as teenagers or women beyond middle age, but still of childbearing age?

Folks, the writing is on the wall. Women living in a society that provides some healthcare security don't have as many unwanted pregnancies nor do they opt for abortions as a consequence.
(more at link)

Hmmm?
Are erections medically necessary???

Factor in the costs of a child's healthcare until 18 and that seems like a no-brainer to me.

It ain't up to me. It ain't my body.

However, I'll support and help defend a woman's right to choose. I vote progressive and don't trust any pro-life Pol. If a pol doesn't protect a woman's right to choose then he/she won't get my vote or money or support.

We need to stop the war on women already.

knr

They refused to pay for anything that compromised our fertility--even to save our lives. Abortion was right out, even to save our lives. It got really quiet in the teachers' lounge the day I asked about that. Apparently, no one at the girls school where I taught at the time had read all the way through it. Sobering thought--even if we were dying on the table, hemorraging out from a bad miscarriage and needing a hysterectomy, they wouldn't pay for it.

After-all, you must keep the Military Industrial Complex happy!