Happy Birthday, Beth and Raq!

Phil was so pleased with his graft that he had to hug himself and giggle with glee. (Probably JZ's favorite moment of the weekend.)

Mine too. The whole weekend sounds lovely, but that's just adorable.

I'm skeptical of the "covers Viagra but not BC" example. Does anyone have an example of a real case where this happened?

I thought it was about the gov requiring coverage for Viagra, or something like that. Lemme dig around... Ah, here's a pdf, but this is the relevant part:

U.S.: Medicaid Must Cover Viagra

By Amy Goldstein, Washington Post, Friday, July 3, 1998; Page A21

The federal government ordered states yesterday to cover Viagra under their Medicaid programs, infuriating many of the nation's governors, who swiftly accused U.S. health officials of costing them millions of dollars and ignoring their worries about the male impotence drug. The unexpected directive, dispatched in a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services, told states that federal law requires them to pay for the expensive, enormously popular drug through Medicaid, the insurance program for the poor and disabled. Any state Medicaid program that covers prescription medicines, the letter said, must also pay for Viagra. But states countered that, in issuing its order, the federal government was putting them in the untenable position of covering Viagra for men while virtually none of them cover birth control or infertility treatments for women.

So far I've discovered that if I give birth after 35 weeks gestation when I'm out-of-network, I have no insurance coverage at all.

Good lord. Is this the get-your-health-care-at-the-company-store plan, or the other equally monolithic blue-colored organization?

Also, because it didn't seem right in the same post, happy birthdays beth and raq!

thanks for the wish

Aimee, Em is beautiful in her Easter dress! I also loved the pictures of her room. Did you guys move? I've been sort of absent the last few days, so I may have missed it. Anyway, my SIL was just looking over my shoulder and admiring Em's room.

Happy Birthdays, Beth and Raq!!

Cute not-quite-babies-anymore, people!

Sounds like the Zmayhem had a fab time in Vegas, baby.

So, um, based on my completely unrelated experience, I say go to the movies.

Thanks, Burrell! But now I slept in too late to go today. But Thursday or Friday, it is ON. Mmmm....sleep.

amych, that's the "we-own-these-people HMO", not the big blooie.

I hit 35 weeks June 15. This means no last-minute day trips to Wilmington, even. Sigh.

From a 2004 article:

In a comprehensive study to be released tomorrow, the Alan Guttmacher Institute found that 86 percent of employer-provided health plans covered a full range of contraceptive choices in 2002, compared with 28 percent in a parallel 1993 study.

and:

Other official steps that expanded birth control coverage were the federal government's decision in 1999 to require contraceptive coverage in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and the finding in 2000 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that failure of employers to include contraceptives in prescription drug coverage constitutes sex discrimination.

The issues created by the FDA approval of Viagra in 1998 were already beginning to be addressed at both the state and federal level in 1999. I'm not saying that contraceptive rights aren't worth fighting for, but that the Viagra argument as an example of widespread hypocrisy is a bit of a dead horse by now.

I'm boggled. Wanting out of network stuff to be only in an emergency, okay, but no coverage at all after 35 weeks is just nuts.