Insurance Companies Deny Coverage for Previous Rape Victims

We recently found out about yet another health insurance tactic to not cover certain people, mostly women. To be specific not covering women that have been previously raped. It turns out that if women that have been raped, go to a doctor or hospital, these providers more often than not, prescribe for them a month's supply of anti-AIDS medicine. This of course goes on their record. Even though most of these women never get AIDS, insurance companies will deny them health coverage in the future, due to their supposedly pre-existing condition...

This is discrimination against women who had no control over their predicament. We are talking about thousands of women who get raped or sexually assaulted each year in this country! This could be your sister, wife, mother or daughter. Not only does this mean that these women will live with the horrible memory of their rape, but they will also have to face living without health insurance coverage for the rest of their lives! As stated previously, most of them never get the so called pre-existing condition, which in this case is AIDS!

To read more about this rape pre-existing injustice click here.

Domestic Violence Victims Considered to Have Pre-Existing Condition!

We are talking about insurance companies here. Did you know that in 9 states of our country, if you have a domestic violence incident on your record, insurance companies can deny you coverage? This is absolutely unfair! We were not aware of this as we're sure many other people weren't. According to the National Women's Law Center, the following states allow insurance companies to deny coverage to domestic violence victims: Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Wyoming and the District of Columbia.

But this insurance company policy might be coming to an end soon according to the latest news. Democrats in Congress are making sure that this discriminatory insurance company practice will not be accepted in the new health reform bill. They also want people who know of domestic violence victims that were denied coverage, to let them know that perhaps now they might be covered by an insurance company. They should call their state department to find out and try to get coverage again.

Women On Guard (womenonguard.com) doesn't understand how on earth it was allowed in these 9 states to not cover domestic violence victims! So insurance companies figure that if a woman was injured by no fault of her own, she should be denied coverage? How about all the victims that are shot with a bullet every day? Should they be denied coverage? Or if someone crashes into your car with their car... should this not be covered, just because you drive a car? We don't understand on what grounds this was being allowed and why these states accepted it. We encourage that if you live in one of these states that allow this discrimination by insurance companies, to contact your state health department and demand this discriminatory insurance company policy be stopped!