Should women who need maternity coverage pay more for insurance than those who don't?

[Jackpine Radical]

73. OK, I went off on a tangent there.

My disgust with the insurance model obscured my reaction to the point you are trying to make here.

Let me clarify something about my underlying position.

Regardless of whether we are discussing a system like our current mess or a more rational national health plan, it is wrong to discriminate against women or to seek to demand "maternity insurance" or whatever you might call it.

I believe that it is not just women, but society as a whole, that benefits from providing adequate maternity services, including health care. Does anyone seriously want more children gestated and born under less-than-healthy conditions? No matter how cold-hearted you may be about motherhood or children, you're going to end up paying a lot more for the tragic consequences of that social choice than the few extra bucks you might save on your insurance bill. And you may be sure that there will be kids born to mothers who couldn't afford that "add-on," or who just didn't expect to get pregnant.

I would go further and say that society as a whole, not just women or any other group that has traditionally been treated unfairly, benefits when that society enacts policies and practices forbidding discrimination against any of its members.