CNN: (Insurance Co's) "help a woman get rid of a child"

[Synnical]

This morning on American Morning, they ran a preview of a report to air tonite on Anderson Cooper's 360 about the black market emerging for fertility drugs.

The reporter, one Randi Kaye, seemed emotionally distressed that people could not afford fertility drugs and most insurance companies won't cover the cost. Near the end she comments,

KAYE: Now you may wonder why these people are so desperate. Well, infertility treatment can cost $12,000 to $15,000, and it is not covered by insurance. That is the problem. Only 14 states mandate infertility medications be covered. The insurance company say it's up to the employers, and the employers say they can't afford to cover everything, yet they cover medications like Viagra. Insurance even covers an abortion. So, Soledad, it will help a woman get rid of a child but it won't help a woman have a child.

From my experience, no insurance company I've ever had covers non-emergency abortions, and many of them didn't even cover birth control pills.

I was highly annoyed by this biased presentation and obvious personal feelings expressed by the "reporter".

Transcript is here, about half way down the page: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0601/24/ltm.03.html

Link to Cooper's show: http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/



:grr:

[Maat]

1. Wow - you were alert to notice this!

Yes, this comment needs to be addressed.

[sasha031]

2. Cooper is the new Geraldo Rivera

disinformation and lack of common sense...

[Debau2005]

3. If insurance covers fertility treatments

then I want it to cover the costs of my adoption. The outcome is the same, so I see no difference.

[gratuitous]

4. Uhm, I didn't realize human infertility was such a problem

With more and more people crowding the planet every day, is the infertility of some individuals really such a screaming need that we need to change public policy to pay for more people? Yes, it is tragic that some couples cannot reproduce -- tragic in a narrow, isolated one-family's-private-pain way. I fail to see that that is a public policy problem.

[guruoo]

5. And, what about the thousands of parentless kids out there ...

still struggling to find a family to adopt them?

[Horse with no Name]

6. But But But

What about God's will?
If God wanted you to have a baby, he would have made sure your equipment worked.
Maybe this is his grand design to prevent overpopulation?
Or perhaps since you are hellbent on having a baby against God's will, then perhaps someone having an abortion is just making room for your selfish attempt to circumvent nature.

On edit: There is some sarcasm in my post mixed with truth.:)

[AZBlue]

8. That always burns me up. Like the woman who had 6 or 7 kids b/c she

wouldn't abort any of the fetuses even though it was dangerous for both her and them. (And then relied on everyone and anyone to give her money and help.) She claimed it was God's will for her to have that many.

Um....no, it was God's will for you to not have any. It was the doctors' will for you to have any.

[renate]

7. not that I had been feeling any temptation to go back to CNN,

but this is just more evidence of the death of unbiased reporting and another confirmation of my decision to stay away from CNN. If I wanted Randi Kaye's opinion, I would ask her for it.

I respect the opinion of people who sincerely believe that abortion is wrong--I disagree, but I'm not going to pretend that I can't see their point. However, I don't want to hear them gassing about it in a totally unrelated news story. It would have been inappropriate for her to shove in a pro-choice opinion, too.

[colinmom71]

9. Actually, my health insurance DOES...

Cover elective abortions. But yeah, it's one of the very few plans that I'm aware of that does so... Then again, this insurance plan also covers infertility treatments (including IVF and it's needed meds), though Georgia is not one of the states that mandates such coverage.

I actually support her rant. Women deserve to have *all* their reproductive health options covered - be that hormonal birth control, infertility treatments, pre-natal care, and even abortions...

[Synnical]

11. Reporters shouldn't be "ranting"

This is a supposedly "in-depth report" that will air in about 45 minutes on the East Coast. Her verbiage is unacceptable. "it will help a woman get rid of a child but it won't help a woman have a child." A fetus is not a child! A medical procedure chosen by a female is not, as this "reporter" implies, a child that has been "gotten rid of".

[spinbaby]

10. Most do if it's medically necessary

I knew someone who had a medically necessary abortion--the baby had a genetic defect that was "not compatible with life" and as a side benefit caused dangerous toxemia with extremely high blood pressure in the mother. It took over a week of gathering documentation of this before her insurance agreed to cover the abortion.

[FreedomAngel82]

12. They always do that

Just one side to manipulate people's opinions. It's purely disgusting. They should hear everything. Just like with Roe v Wade.