Can my wife sign up for her company’s health insurance plan even though she’s already pregnant?

Traditionally, a health insurance company could deny coverage for a pregnant woman, or write the policy to exclude maternity costs from the coverage. They claimed that being pregnant was a preexisting condition that was exempt from policy standards. That has changed since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare.

One of the most popular or more protested, depending on your point of view, is the requirement of maternity coverage in all health insurance policies written since 2010. One side sees maternity care as a health need potential for women while those who disapprove say that coverage is not the responsibility of all policyholders, specifically men and those who cannot bear children. Neither argument has any bearing on the requirements of the law, which can be applied, as insurance companies have done for years, to the idea of pregnancy as a preexisting condition.

Under the ACA, health insurance policies have to include coverage for people with preexisting conditions. This typically refers, for example, to someone with asthma, skin cancer, or other ongoing health need. However, since the health insurance industry has denied coverage for pregnancies on the grounds of preexisting conditions, for years, the law also means that a pregnant woman cannot be excluded from coverage, nor can her pregnancy.

Your wife can also get group health insurance coverage through other sources, including organizations such as the AARP, AAA, and others. Buying health insurance outside of the company will mean she has to pay the full premiums, including the portion previously paid by the employer, but she may be able to find ample maternity coverage from another source at an equally affordable cost.

You can use this website to get a free online health insurance quote which includes coverage for a pregnant woman. The advantage of getting quote from this site is that the quote you receive will be compared to other leading competitors so that you see at a glance how much money you can save. Because the site is an insurance brokerage, it represents policies from several different insurance companies, rather than a single offering from most insurance providers.