Date: 10 Nov 2009 Comments: 0

Being pregnant is not meant to be easy. Being pregnant without health coverage is significantly more problematic. The frustrating thing is that no one wants to go uninsured if they have a choice about it, and often women become pregnant by accident, so the fair conclusion would be that insurance companies would be tolerant of uninsured pregnant women.

That is not the case.

In reality Getting insurance for pregnant women is very hard. Why? The formal reason is because the pregnancy is viewed as a pre-existing condition, a reason that causes many people to struggle to obtain health coverage (i.e. if someone has Alzheimer, getting health coverage and does not possess insurance might prove to be virtually impossible as well).

On one hand, it is possible to understand the insurance company’s perspective: nine months of pregnancy can cost quite a fortune: visits to the physician, standard screenings, the risk of complications and not to mention the delivery of the baby itself. However, pregnancy is a natural fact of life, and in this day and age we should expect that there be laws helping women get health coverage if they find out they are pregnant and do not possess health insurance.

Unfortunately, this is not the case – there is no federal law requiring health insurance providers to help women in this situation. Many women would not even request for a low cost medical insurance but would settle for whatever they can get – but alas, even that is not an easy task.

The good news is that there are several programs that offer maternity coverage for women, as well as programs that are insurance-like (which cover the entire pregnancy and delivery) – essentially, these are sufficient.

In our site, The Guide to Health, we offer several articles that elaborate on the options available for women in this situation as well as offer links to one such a program. Hopefully, you, the reader, are not uninsured and pregnant – but if you are, this site can really help you.