by Megan Veith
A mind-blowing article appeared
in the NY Times recently about the high cost of having a baby in the US. As
part of an interactive feature, the author asked the reader how much a
pregnancy cost in the US. As an average woman in her twenties, who has never
been pregnant before, I settled with an estimate of a few thousand dollars. The
real answer shocked me: an average pregnancy in the US costs $37,341.
Surely, this was mistake! Was I
reading the answer correctly? Did I mistake this for another country? No, no,
no.
According to a recent
study by Childbirth Connection, women with commercial insurance generally
pay 12% in out-of-pocket costs (between $2,244 and $2,669) for childbirth,
while women with Medicaid get nearly all costs of birth covered. Insurance
providers and the government take up the rest of the bill, meaning taxpayers
and health insurance consumers end up paying, too. Given that today health care
is supposed to be more affordable, more patient-focused, and more
evidence-based, I could not understand how a procedure that a majority
of women face during their lifetime could literally break women’s
hard-earned banks. I decided to investigate how this outrage could exist and
whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would help lower maternal health costs
for women.
The main reasons that pregnancies
are so expensive in the US are the increased use of unnecessary medical
interventions for low-risk pregnancies, such as C-sections and inductions, as
well as the high cost of medical malpractice insurance for OB/GYNs. Moreover,
cost-saving and effective alternatives to hospitalized births (such as the use
of midwives or birth centers) are grossly underfunded and in some cases highly
restricted or even illegal because state laws, with doctor support, make it
difficult for them to become licensed even when they are just as safe (and
arguably even safer) for women with low-risk births.
Luckily, the ACA works to correct
some of these problems. The ACA provides a number of benefits to pregnant women
that will hopefully lower the costs of pregnancies in the US.
Some of the benefits are
specifically applicable to pregnant women. For example, in terms of access to
maternal services, the ACA mandates that plans allow direct
access to an OB/GYN without prior authorization from a health plan or
doctor referral. The ACA also provides better support for nurse-midwives
and birth centers, which are more affordable than having a baby in a
hospital with an OB/GYN.
In a ground-breaking move, the
ACA also requires new insurance plans to cover women’s preventive
services without cost-sharing (i.e. deductibles, co-pay, etc.). The services
related to maternal health include breastfeeding support and supplies,
gestational diabetes screening, and well-woman
visits for prenatal care. Moreover, it also requires new insurance plans to
provide an “essential
benefits” package that includes maternal and newborn health services.
In terms of better assistance and
education, the ACA includes grants for home-visiting
programs which would provide information and services to at-risk
communities about pregnancy. The ACA also provides better treatment for
pregnant women needing comprehensive
tobacco cessation services and for women suffering from post-partum
depression.
The ACA also includes provisions
that apply to all women, but will help pregnant women in particular. One of the
most important changes the ACA makes is that it incentivizes states to expand Medicaid
- so in states that choose to, Medicaid covers women at or below 133% of the
poverty line. Importantly, it also prohibits certain insurance plans from
denying coverage based on pre-existing
conditions (such as C-sections), from rescinding
coverage when a woman becomes pregnant or incurs high medical costs, and from
imposing lifetime
and annual limits. There are also provisions that cap out-of-pocket
costs.
To make finding a plan easier,
the ACA requires states to implement an online
marketplace for people to make apples-to-apples comparisons on health
insurance plans.
Finally, the ACA also fights
gender discrimination by eliminating gender
rating in certain insurance plans. Gender rating is where insurance
companies charge women more than men just for being a woman.
Much more can be done to ensure
that pregnant women are guaranteed their right to affordable health insurance –
including, for example, ensuring insurance coverage for women who choose to
terminate their pregnancies; currently, the ACA places
restrictions on insurance coverage for abortion. However, at least the ACA is a step in the
right direction!
Megan Veith is currently a legal intern at Legal Voice. She just finished her second year at Georgetown University Law Center, after graduating with her Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Washington. Megan is a strong advocate for women’s rights and is thrilled at the opportunity to fight for equality for all people at Legal Voice.
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