Domestic Violence: Insurance Companies Say “Pre-Existing Condition”

If you have been a victim of domestic violence, possibly you already know what most of us don’t know, some insurance companies consider your spousal battering to be a pre-existing condition, which allows them to deny your claim. This practice is nothing more than a second punishment for a victim of domestic violence.

The debate on health care reform has many areas of contention where passions are hot on both sides of each issue. However, this is one issue where health-care reform might end an extremely unfair practice by insurance companies in eight states and the District of Columbia. Every caring human, possibly with the exception of insurance companies, should condemn the denial of claims on the basis that domestic violence is, according to the cold logic of the insurance industry, a pre-existing condition. Their practice is to inhumanely victimize the battered spouse once again even before the wounds from their most recent battering have healed. It is clear that insurance companies refuse to police themselves. If the health-care reform measures fail to measure up to our needs and expectations in other areas, please let us show our humanity by supporting elimination of pre-existing conditions as a reason for insurance companies to deny payment, thus protecting their profiteering from human suffering.

In 2006 the Democrats tried to end the practice. An amendment introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) split the Health Education Labor & Pension Committee 10-10. The tie vote meant that the measure failed. All ten no votes were Republicans.

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