As goes California
Should health insurers be legally required to offer infertility treatment for gay couples? Yes, according to a bill (AB 460) filed in the California legislature by assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco). In fact, refusing to do so should be a crime.
Current California law requires group health plans to offer coverage for infertility treatments with the exception of in vitro fertilization (IVF). If such coverage is purchased, benefits must be paid whenever “a demonstrated condition recognized by a licensed physician and surgeon as a cause for infertility” has been diagnosed—or upon “the inability to conceive a pregnancy or to carry a pregnancy to a live birth after a year of regular sexual relations without contraception.” Thus, under current law, diagnosis of a physical reason for the inability to conceive or sire a child is not required. It is enough that a couple tried to get pregnant for a year and failed.
According to the fact sheet supporting AB 460, the trouble is that some insurance companies “are not complying with current law that prohibits discrimination” based on sexual orientation. Instead, they are denying infertility treatment benefits “based on [the policy holder’s] not having an opposite sex married partner in which to have one year of regular sexual relations without conception.” AB 460 would amend the law to add the following language:
Coverage for the treatment of infertility shall be offered and provided without discrimination on the basis of age, ancestry, color, disability, domestic partner status, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.
So, two males get “married” then wait a year while their coupling fails to produce a pregnancy, then their insurance carrier will be obligated to pay for … a surrogate?
Law is not only an ass, but a biological fantasist, as well.
freaks of nature nation
Tom Ammiano? Is that old queen still around?
By the way, and only partly to stir the pot, this is the logical outcome of the sort of illogic that led to insurers being required to cover contraceptives.
See, bullcrap like this is why I’ll never support gay marriage or any other “culturally progressive” measure anyone cares to propose. No matter how libertarian they talk, it always comes back to how many absurd “equalities” they can impose on an inherently unequal nature. I’d love to stand on principle, but when the other guy just wants results, what can you do but be an equal and opposite force?
It all comes back to Civil Rights, doesn’t it? They had one (partial) success, and now they’re trying to force every goddamned peg in the toolbox through that hole.
they have a penchant for shoving things in that hole that don’t belong BourbonDry
Lewis Carroll – “Now why didn’t I think of that?”
There’s a point here to note before the point being made in this post. Here:
That’s also an abridgment of our freedom to make contracts with one another. The gay aspect is a subset of this larger problem.
What if you wanted to offer a group plan that was much leaner so that you could cover more employees like janitors or another lower skilled job? You couldn’t.
It’s a bit like the minimum wage laws.
I’m currently going through this with the new business. I want to offer some attractive benefits to help draw the best employees possible but now I’m not hiring analysts. I’m hiring dishwashers, waitstaff, and line cooks.
They’re not bringing nearly as much added value but I can’t offer a plan that just covers the sorts of things that a basic health insurance plan should.
It’d be a great benefit and I want to give it to them. But I can’t.
If the Left couldn’t legislate against reality, they’d have nothing else to do.
Gay couples got nothing on non-sexuals for infertility. People who are unable to reproduce — through no fault of their own, but because of the malicious refusal of others to procreate with them — should receive this same consideration.
Hey, I resemble that remark, McGehee.
I demand my right of procreation, or at least attempting it.
Pretty soon all babies will be bottle babies and sex as we know it child’s play.
Why does life keep imitating Monty Python… without being funny?
i need california to limp along for like two more years
as if californication hasn’t been limping along long enough already… heck i knew somebody in ’93 that took a massive pay cut just to get away from it and was glad to do it!
So, basically, God is a bigot and it’s up to health insurers to provide the living, breathing relationship accessories that nature stubbornly refuses to provide. Because there’s a right to children.
Where’s my abortion, dammit? WHAT ABOUT MY RIGHTS?????
Where’s my abortion, dammit? WHAT ABOUT MY RIGHTS?????
Get rid of your pale heteronormative penis, and then we can talk about rights.
HETEROPHOBE!!!
Heterophobe=homophile? I thought that was the new hotness?
Ummm…..RAAAAACIST!
start the meme: the gayz are boring
I’m currently going through this with the new business. I want to offer some attractive benefits to help draw the best employees possible but now I’m not hiring analysts. I’m hiring dishwashers, waitstaff, and line cooks.
Good luck! I’ve worked in the front of the house for many, many years.
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So does (potential) Parent 1 or Parent 2 have the fertility problem? I’m confused…
Isn’t this the logical end to a self-involved society? Who is receiving the infertility treatment anyway? Why do these couples wish to pass on their self-indulgent genes anyway? What’s so great about these couples anyway?
This is one of my problems with surrogate parents. There is a lengthy, exhaustive and expensive process to adopt a child after one is deemed a suitable parent. Anyone who has adopted a child can tell you these. These infertile couples are jumping to the front of the line to get expensive medical treatment for an outcome to which they may not be suited. It may suit them, but does it suit society and must we pay for this social experiment?
Has anyone thought about the potential children and what is best for them? It seems not.