Rape Victim Deemed Uninsurable For Seeking Treatment for Rape

http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/risk-aids-or-health-insurance-rape-victim-deemed-uninsurable-for-seeking-treatment-for-rape/


Risk AIDS or Health Insurance?: Rape Victim Deemed Uninsurable For Seeking Treatment for Rape
posted by: Ximena R.


You're away for work on a business trip. You go out to a bar and two men offer to buy you a drink. The next thing you know you wake up on the side of the road with cuts and bruises on your body indicating that you were raped. The men who bought you drinks had drugged you.

You go to the doctor for treatment and because there is no way to know whether man who raped you wore a condom you are put on preventative anti-HIV drugs. You are traumatized by the assault – even afraid to leave your house – so you seek counseling to deal with your fears, but a few months into treatment you need to find new health insurance and find out that you are all but uninsurable.

Christina Turner – the rape victim who endured this ordeal – was not surprised.

A former health insurance underwriter, Turner knew that finding health insurance for her would be difficult as a rape victim. To confirm her suspicions she began calling health insurance companies posing her story as a hypothetical situation. Each time she told her story she heard the same thing: "Nope we won't take her." To be eligible she would need to be out of counseling for one to two years and have received negative HIV tests for two to three years.

In the meantime what was Turner – and other rape victims like her – expected to do? Go without health insurance? Pay out-of-pocket for everything?

For Turner paying for private insurance was impossible. It would cost more than her monthly rent so she went without coverage for nearly three years. In doing so, she was forced to pay for her counseling, anti-depressants, and any other medical treatments on her own – all because she sought treatment for being raped.

Unfortunately, Turner is not alone.

..more..

:wtf: and :grr:

Who knew that those days of dropping people in "underwriting review" would come back to bite her in the ass. I normally think little of those blame the victim arguments, :eyes: but in this case it might have some merit.

:sarcasm:

This is case in point. They can ignore it all they want (Obama - "they don't do this because they are bad people...") but the gorilla in the room isn't leaving.

I don't think he really believes that, at least I hope not!