Short rant about insurance

Let me just begin this post by saying that I think Universal Healthcare is a good idea.  I grew  up with no insurance and know the hardships it places on families.  I don’t agree with Obamacare for many reasons, number one of which is that it feels like it’s trying to reinvent the wheel – and doing a really bad job of it.  However, this is not about whether or not Obamacare is good or bad.  It’s about the media frenzy over mandatory birth control.

Here’s the deal.  I’ve taken birth control for years.  I have to.  See, I have this thing called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  Basically, my brain produces too much of one hormone, and not enough of another one leading to many health issues (e.g. a greater risk of  ovarian cancer, heart disease, etc.).  One of which is that I don’t ovulate on a regular schedule.  Birth control is a cheap, safe way to keep my hormones regulated, keeping me regulated.   The problem, then, is getting pregnant.

And this is my issue with the whole argument.  Let’s leave morals and ethics aside.  They’ve been argued to death and we’re still where we were forty years ago when Roe v. Wade made headlines.  I found out a few things in 2008 when I first received my diagnosis.  The number one thing I discovered is, while it will pay for abortions and birth control, my insurance will not pay for infertility treatments or drugs.  That’s my problem with the whole thing.  

It’s not a choice if only some women get to choose.  What about women like me?  What about all the infertility cases who long, so desperately, for a baby but are denied financial assistance by an insurance company willing to terminate a pregnancy but not create one? 

It isn’t fair.  It’s been almost four years since I found all this out and I’m still angry about the whole thing.  Very, very angry.

I was fortunate enough that it only took me two months on a fertility drug known as Clomid, to get pregnant.  But in those two months, we spent a lot of our personal money to make this happen.  I don’t want to think about the amount of money women like my mother, who was considered an infertility case for 10 years and was on Clomid for four years, spend trying to have a baby.

So I guess my point here is that if you’re going to pay for one, you have to pay for the other.  If birth control is going to be mandatory, so should infertility treatments.  It’s only fair.