I hate to say "I have my head buried in a book and I'll see you in a few years" but to some degree (ahahhahahahah the PharmD degree...) this is true. I have little time to think about anything besides surviving school, work, and parenting (like say having a relationship with the spouse).
So today when I saw that it has been 2 years since the big deal federal healthcare reform law passed, I was shocked. 2 years have vanished in all this school and life craziness, and I haven't finished forming an opinion about the reforms that are going to change my field and healthcare all together by the time I finish school.
I was reading a post on the public health perspective, which is my favorite, and it linked to a discussion of part of healthcare reform that I care a great deal about: women's health. Note I don't care about women's health issues just because I'm a woman. I care about them because it's so weird to me that we have health issues, and separately WOMEN'S health. Aren't we all people? I mean now. Obviously historically there were people and women and slaves/servants. Hopefully we're beyond those divisions now. I really hope.
Anyway, health care for women is a big deal. Here's my take on why insurance for women is so much more costly than men (and why for some reason nobody is unhappy enough about this, in my opinion).
Somehow we figure that women get pregnant all on their own, and because it isn't easy to prove paternity, only women bear the consequences of pregnancy (extra health care costs in this case). Clearly this isn't the case. Babies are a two-person creation, even if they both aren't complicit in the initial creation (say someone is drunk or raped).
My solution: men pay healthcare premiums equal to women, and if not insured by the same carrier, when a baby is born (and the newly mandated paternity test done, because this is my perfect world with unicorns, rainbows, and magic ponies) the father's insurance company pays 50% of the first year of life insurance costs plus 50% of labor and delivery costs (which include prenatal care for some reason). Look at that! I fixed it! Any care needed beyond the normal would have to be split 50/50 too. After year 1 of life, baby ought to get his/her own personal insurance of some sort. I'm sorry to all the men out there not having children, but you ought to be paying to support men who are parents just like women without children are paying to insure women who have children.
Infertility insurance coverage is a discussion for another day. Oh, I am gonna go there. But not in this post.
I like it. :)
ReplyDelete