Individual Health Insurance Policies Often Do Not Cover Pregnancy

Chicago Tribune: Many individual health policies do not cover pregnancy, by Michelle Andrews:

Individual health insurance policies generally don't cover maternity care, as a recent investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce reported.

When Amy Tiller became pregnant six years ago, she was a high school biology teacher in Waynesville, N.C., and the health insurance plan she had through her school system covered the tab for the birth of her twins.

A few years later, when she discovered she was pregnant again, she didn't give insurance a thought, assuming she'd be covered once again. But by then she had left her teaching job to open a personal training studio with her husband, and they were covered under individual health insurance policies.

Tiller was shocked to discover that her new plan didn't cover maternity care at all unless she purchased a special rider for the coverage, something she could not do after she became pregnant. "I was paying so much -- $400 a month" for the insurance premium, she says. "I thought it must be a mistake." . . .