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Noreen Evans
STAFF AND WIRE REPORT
Women in California are now guaranteed maternity care under three bills signed by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Brown said the bills ensure that mothers who decide to take maternity leave will no longer have to worry about losing their medical coverage. His office announced the bill signings Thursday.
SB222 by state Sen. Noreen Evans, a Democrat from Santa Rosa, requires health insurance companies to provide maternity coverage as part of their individual insurance plans, beginning next July 1. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed similar legislation three times.
A second bill by Evans, SB299, ensures women in California do not lose their employer-provided health insurance coverage while on maternity leave .
The third bill, AB210 by Democratic Assemblyman Roger Hernandez of Baldwin Park, requires group health insurance policies to provide women with maternity coverage.
Many insurers exclude maternity services, which include post-childbirth care, in their basic plans. More than 200,000 women of childbearing age in California have health insurance plans that do not cover maternity care.
Evans, who chairs the Legislative Women’s Caucus, said her bill will save the state money by increasing maternity coverage options for women, reducing the burden on the state to provide maternity coverage.
“We applaud Governor Brown for making the rights of pregnant mothers a priority, by signing SB222,” Evans said in a statement. “SB222 ensures that women and/or mothers-to-be no longer need to go without maternity care or maternity health insurance coverage.”
While current law requires HMOs and health insurers to include maternity coverage in their group health insurance plans, individually-marketed plans are not subject to that requirement, Evans said. As a result, inexpensive, “maternity-free” insurance policies have proliferated on the insurance market.
The number of policies that include maternity coverage has dropped from 82 percent in 2004 to only 12 percent in 2010, leaving many California women priced out of the insurance market, Evans said. While maternity coverage is expected to be included in the new federal health care reform law in 2014, the federal law may not cover all policies.
“The signing of SB222 means California is investing in its future,” Shannon Smith-Crowley, of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement issued by Evans’ office. “We’ll be reducing the risk of premature births that are often the result of inadequate prenatal care and reducing the prevalence of low birth weight babies. Adequate healthcare for mothers and their babies now means a healthier California for the future.”
Evans said her second bill, SB299, will help prevent new mothers from having to pay out-of-pocket costs for their maternity health coverage or cut short their pregnancy leave because of financial pressures.
Under state law, women can take up to four months of unpaid maternity leave for a “pregnancy-related condition.” However, the law does not require employers to continue the employee’s group insurance coverage for the duration of that leave.
“Meaningful access to maternity leave – including keeping health insurance coverage – is essential to the health and economic well-being of working mothers and newborns,” Evans said in a statement. “By signing SB299, Governor Brown has saved many California working mothers from having to make the difficult of choice of whether to take maternity leave and lose their health coverage, or not take time off for maternity leave at all.”
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@LBR,
First, I’m not sure you understood my post via your response. I clearly indicated I hadn’t read the bill as of yet and was asking more about it’s detail. I wasn’t making a statement about the bill, I was asking a question. My follow up comments were limited to the articles statements regarding premature birth, something I have some personal knowledge about.
Second, my question specific to the bill was focused on the split of health care costs between employer/employee, if that split was mandated by the bill to be covered solely by the employer while the mother was on maternity leave, which would presumably be after birth. While I didn’t get a response on this question, here I’ve been able to educate myself on the bill. It’s actually not clearly delineated in the bill, so appears open to interpetation. Which will create employer/employee issues in the future, I’m sure. I’m all for care for both mother and child both pre and post birth, what I’m not for is the employer becoming the sole provider of that coverage, unless it’s been previoulsy contracted for/provided, not based solely on the woman’s new “condition/status”.
I have been paying $500 a month for health insurance for many years. Now that I am pregnant and will be needing the coverage for delivery and had to go on disability.The same week I filed for disability, at the end of the week, my contract was terminated and I was dropped from the insurance.Now I can continue coverage through COBRA by paying a similar fee but it doesn’t cover all the benefits included through work.
@Karen,
My point was that govt can’t require health plans to cover more and more and then complain, when premiums rise, it’s all the fault of greedy insurance companies. Each new mandate costs something.
Also, all these mandates negate consumer choice. It’s impossible in California to buy a true high-deductible catastrophic medical plan. All are mandated to cover numerous procedures exclusive of deductible or co-pay. And California keeps adding to them.
Most middle class families, with a modicum of financial discipline, could pay for routine and ordinary medical expenses. What we all need is catastrophic coverage, which, in its pure form, would be affordable.
@Commonsense – I believe this is more about medical care after birth, not before. Is it right to force a new mother of a baby with a medical condition to go back to work in order to keep her healthcare?
Cobra policies are offered if the woman on maternity leave is not working, after all sick leave and vacation time is used up. Those cobra policies are extremely expensive.
Kevin H-it’s provable that good maternity care cuts costs and is cheap for the outcome. Prevention of early births, finding potential problems and treating them before birth keeps costs down. Just like prevention and well care keep people healthy and treat them before a crisis develops and they show up in the ER.
“Under state law, women can take up to four months of unpaid maternity leave for a “pregnancy-related condition.” However, the law does not require employers to continue the employee’s group insurance coverage for the duration of that leave.”
Does anyone know if the employer will be expected to cover all premium costs while the employee is out on leave?
I’ve tried to keep track of the more then 600 bills being reviewed for signature by the govenor, but I’m not familiar with this one. It would seem a little inequitable if the benefits package in place prior to pregnancy required a employer/employee shared premium and then during leave didn’t?
BTW, I do know a little about premature births, as my child was born two months early. It had nothing to do with the quality of medical care I was receiving. And after doing a large amount of research and spening alot of time in a NICU in SF, I can tell you many premature and underweight births are either due to a mothers medical/physical condition or many are due to addicted mothers. To equate this bill with easing those stats assumes that a connection between these things that don’t exist. Addicted mothers won’t now seek treatment just because it’s easier to access for them, and mothers suffering from current conditions who are already in treatment will continue that treatment.
The article does not mention the cost of any of these three new laws. Maternity coverage as part of individual medical insurance policies, medical insurance continuation while off work due to pregnancy and a requirement that group insurance plans cover pregnancies. All three of these insurance coverages have already been available for a price. Are they free now or will someone have to pay for them? Not free – so who pays? Also no discussion of the indirect consequences. If I am highering a new employee, do I hire a guy or a gal with higher insurance cost? Or do I just higher someone outside of California? And what is better – have job without these pregnancy related coverages or not have a job at all – but if you did, you would have these benefits?
Article should say “Women in California are now guaranteed fewer jobs under three bills signed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Legislation sponsored by Noreen Evans ensures more Californians, and California women in particular, will be unemployed.
Reality Check- WE pay a hefty premium each month to insure our college age daughter and although I don’t wish to have to cover the expenses of those people having baby after baby, I don’t think that medical coverage for post-delivery care for a reasonable amount of time is out of line.
This is not about people living off the system, its about getting proper medical treatment from the insurance company that someone has been paying into for probably several years.
Two very good points made by Reality Check and Pearl Alquileres.
The cost of medical coverage is driven up by lawsuits. Medical malpractice insurance premiums are ridiculously high because slimy lawyers file suits for everything. Because of the risk of being sued, doctors will perform every test imaginable to avoid the risk of a lawyer claiming negligence because a “doctor in the same or similar circumstances would have run the XYZ test and identified the problem, thus the permanent injury is the proximate and legal cause of my client’s injuries.”
But hey, the trial lawyers bribe the politicians just like the unions do. Heck, the vast majority of politicians are lawyers and get benefits (i.e. bribes) to not implement tort reform.
Insurance coverage for pregnancy makes for an interesting social debate. The market clearly wants low cost health insurance, hence the proliferation of low cost policies excluding maternity.
Requiring maternity coverage spreads the costs across all consumers as any other mandate would. Given the importance of a healthy pregnancy and delivery, this mandate may lower costs in aggregate, over a long period of time. But try proving that.
The problem with Health Care isn’t Doctors, Insurance companies or “Big Pharma”. The problem is LAYWERS!
Law suits and the fear of law suits have driven the cost of Health Care through the roof.
Worse yet, it forces YOUR Doctor to see you has a potential legal liability FIRST, a patient second.
That said, sure… Insurance companies, Hospital admin, Pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufacturers use the fear of law suits to justify $200.00 Band-Aids and drive up profits right along with costs.
But the GOVERNMENT’S solution (as usual) is to throw more money at it. In fact, the genius of Obama-Care is that it backs all this manufactured “liability” with the Federal Printing Press! YOUR TAX DOLLARS!
It not only does NOTHING to address the root cause of escalating Health Care costs, it makes sure there is an endless supply of money (YOUR MONEY) to ENCOURAGE it!
Add to that MORE regulation (thank’s Jerry) and you don’t need a PHD in mathematics to see were this will is headed.
And insurance companies get the blame for rising medical care premiums! Incredible. Does someone think this benefit, or the one requiring coverage for “children” aged 25, is free?