congratulations, it's an increase in your premium!

follow this convoluted game of hot potato that this NYT article highlights in its health section today if you can:

it's no secret that cesarean sections are on the rise and have been for the past couple of decades. we're up to 31.1% now, according to the article. and while we aren't denying that it's an important piece of obstetric technology [my brother wouldn't be here without it], many feminists decry elective cesarean section as a symptom of the technologization of childbirth and the objectification of the female body. after all, a c-section is a major abdominal surgery.

and, as such, it happens to be very expensive, bringing us to the point: the subject of the article was denied health insurance because she'd had a c-section. they call it a "pre-existing condition" doctors, meanwhile, have been passing off the surgery as consequence-free, since it takes less time for them and makes the hospital more money.

but it looks like all's not lost. some companies will still cover you if you've had a c-section - for a price. "Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, which has about 300,000 members with individual coverage, used to exclude repeat Caesareans, but recently began to cover them — for a 25 percent increase in premiums for five years. Like Golden Rule, the company exempts women if they have been sterilized."

great.

so we have obstetricians blaming insurance companies for exploiting and/or discriminating against women who've had c-sections, and we have insurance companies blaming obstetricians for overusing the surgery, but neither group has much to say on the subject of the women they're fucking over.

this quote from Pamela Udy, president of the international caesarean awareness network, pretty much sums it up: "Although many women who have had a Caesarean can safely have a normal birth later, something that Ms. Udy’s group advocates, in recent years many doctors and hospitals have refused to allow such births, because they carry a small risk of a potentially fatal complication, uterine rupture. Now, Ms. Udy says, insurers are adding insult to injury. Not only are women feeling pressure to have Caesareans that they do not want and may not need, but they may also be denied coverage for the surgery."

so, once again, women are caught in the crossfire.