Wife-Beating Is A “Pre-Existing Condition”

By Mande Wilkes

As part of the move to socialize medicine … errr, reform health care, the Obama administration is examining the insurance industry’s coverage denial practices.  As many Americans are by now all too familiar, insurance coverage is generally denied or limited on the grounds of a pre-existing condition – like a leaky heart valve, a high BMI, a genetic disorder or a physically abusive husband.

Wait, what?  A violent spouse is a pre-existing condition?

Huh?

While American feminists continue to fume over some Muslim women’s choice to wear burquas, or liberals blast the interrogatory torture of terrorists, actual American women are denied health coverage because their husbands beat them.

You read that right … while American humanitarians coo over international “human rights” and myriad violations thereof, actual American women are denied health coverage because their husbands beat them.

Plenty of insurance companies – Nationwide, State Farm, Aetna, Allstate, and Prudential, among others – currently brand domestic violence a “pre-existing condition,” often denying coverage on that basis.  In fact, their right to do so is expressly legal in eight states (and in Washington, D.C.).

While there’s certainly a point to such a policy – spousal abuse inflicts expensive wounds, and on a routine basis – it’s enough to make even the most die-hard pro-business conservative squirm under the “how do you sleep at night” microscope.

Hey, Barack Obama & Co.: Reform this! And oh by the way, what says your “Council on Women and Girls” about this, anyway? And in case anybody’s counting bonus points in the irony department: The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)? Yeah, Obama’s Vice-President Joe Biden wrote that.

I, for one, would like to see liberals put their money where their mouth is, starting first with the cold-as-ice inhumanity that literally adds insult to injury, twice – by victimizing beaten women.

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