Insurance and Infertility: Colorado Edition
In 2008, after two years of failing to make a child organically, we learned the doom Kathy had already been feeling for more than a year was justified: I was diagnosed with male-factor infertility. Our only real chance to move forward would be in vitro fertilization. We couldn’t afford it; we couldn’t afford not to do it. One way we tried to work through that diagnosis, our anger, and our options was to start a secret infertility blog, “Less Than a Million.” This post and what comments from 2008 that are attached to it come from that blog.—gb
Out of Colorado comes a story that illustrates the unforgivable sin that is infertility in a health insurer’s eyes:
Right before I chose to live without health insurance, I applied for an HSA (health savings account) health plan. It seemed common sense to have a catastrophic health plan to cover emergencies and take some control over my health care dollars. What should have taken a week for the application to go through underwriting, took three weeks. I was denied.On the medical questionnaire part of the application, you are required to disclose any health problems. I could honestly answer no to every question except one. No smoking, no drinking, no diabetes, no cancer, no heart disease. Yes, three rounds of common infertility medication. My last doctor visit was three years ago.
The health insurance company said that I would have to be placed in the highest risk pool and be referred to a government subsidized plan for un-insurable individuals.
Colorado Health Insurance Insider points out that, while they do have understandable arguments for denying coverage because of past infertility treatments—risk of multiple births is one, as is fear of a catastrophic pregnancy—insurers act unreasonably in denying cases like ForHealth’s.
Obviously, fertility treatment is not the only excuse that insurance companies will use to deny insurance. Last night The Story aired an interview between Dick Gordon and Patsy Bates, whose coverage was canceled while she was undergoing cancer treatments. Both her case as well as ForHealth’s are spluttering injustices. They are yet more evidence (in a long, long list) that our health system is deeply flawed, built as it is on parasites that suck us dry when we are healthy and spit on us when we seek something in return.
