Push for cheaper obstetrics cover

Australia’s key obstetrics body has launched a petition to reform the private health insurance system in which preg­nancy is excluded from all but the most expensive policies.

The petition from the National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists demands reform of the current framework, which forces women to pay double to cover their reproductive health. Picture: iStock

Australia’s key obstetrics body has launched a petition to reform the country’s “extremely discriminatory” private health insurance system in which preg­nancy is excluded from all but the most expensive policies.

The petition from the National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists demands reform of the current framework, which forces women to pay double to cover their reproductive health.

As more than half of conceptions are accidental, NASOG president Gino Pecararo said women “deserve” to be covered in basic insurance packages.

Having already written to the Human Rights Commission asking for an investigation into the matter, he said it was “outlandish that we’d have to write a petition to get the government to sit up and listen to this problem”.

“The problem is that if you’re a woman and you want health insurance that covers your reproductive health, you basically have to pay double what a man does for his reproductive health,” he told The Australian.

“Currently, if you’re a man and have an unplanned sexual encounter with a woman and suffer accidental damage – be it gonorrhoea, septic arthritis or whatever – you’re covered.

“But if you’re a woman and find yourself pregnant from the same sexual encounter, the health insurance will wash their hands of you and your needs unless you have the Gold policy.”

Gold policies that cover pregnancy cost nearly $6000 a year for a family while Bronze and Silver policies that cover male-only problems cost half as much – about $3000 to $4000.

One signatory to the petition, Alana Davis, said the disparity in health insurance coverage was an example of how women are “con­sistently discriminated against for having the capacity to become pregnant.

“Gender should not dictate or change the cost of an insurance premium,” she said.

“Men would not be here without a woman to birth them.”

Currently, private health insurers were making “record profits” due to bans on elective surgeries in locked-down states, while the public system was overwhelmed with Covid-19 related strains, Dr Pecararo said.

“Once we come out of Covid there will be a huge backlog of surgery and other things we have to catch up on and the public hospitals are going to be even more stretched than they are now,” he said.

“One of the easiest ways to fix all the problems would be to legislate that insurance companies cover health costs for pregnancy, in order to get more women into private hospitals and help the public hospitals deal with the Covid backlog.”

But a federal health department spokesperson said the decision to include pregnancy in cheap policies rested with insurers and medical practitioners.