Hi,

My wife (Japanese) and I (USC) are filing for an immigrant visa by DCF in Tokyo. We hopefully (fingers crossed) will be able to come to the U.S. by later summer or fall. Since I will (most likely) not have a job immediately when we return, we are concerned about insurance for my wife. Specifically, an insurance plan that will cover pregnancy. My wife is not pregnant yet, but have discussed trying to have a child as soon as we get back to the U.S. We don't want to wait any longer since we are already in our mid-30's. Also, there is always a possibility that during the time we are arranging our move back, my wife could (hopefully not though) become pregnant. I have been searching for individual insurance plans that cover pregnancy, but a lot of them either do not, do not cover an existing pregnancy, require a 3 month activation period, or are expensive.

Does anyone have any experiences with insurance and pregnancy during their move back to the U.S.? Any recommended insurance plans?

Thanks,
John

To be honest, a lot of individual plans do not cover pregnancy or do at an exorbitant cost. This depends on your state, but even if they do offer, get ready to bend over for it.

I would try to wait until you got on an employer sponsored plan or see if anything is offered by local hospitals or government that are not covered under the I-864 obligation.

www.ehealthinsurance.com

I too have been looking at insurance plans in the US, and would recommend that you wait until covered by an employer - it is really dicey for health coverage - and really expensive!

Thanks Wacken and Carolyn. Well I hope I have a job by the time we go back, but I'm not certain I will. It's very hard to search for jobs from another country although I do have some leads. We don't want to get caught without insurance. I can afford even some expensive insurance for a few months. We are mainly concerned about covering a pregnancy since we are both getting older and we are reaching that age where it getting harder (and making us nervous) to put off having a child just to wait for a visa.

John

Have you looked into pregnancy discount programs? A lot of them have physicians and hospitals registered with them who offer discounts on medical care and hospital stay. It's a good alternative should anything happen.

http://www.pregnancyinsurance.org/
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/insuranceform.html
http://www.maternitycard.com/

Diana

I understand your concerns about waiting, but the DCF process is generally very fast (if we get our visa on Thursday, it will have been 8 weeks and 2 days), and if you can find a job within a month or two of your return, that would not put you soooo far away. Maybe it is just me, but having that peace of mind (in the US anyway!) of having health insurance would make life easier, and to be honest, I would be so stressed about not having it that I probably wouldn't even be able to get pregnant!

From what I know, as a private plan does not cover for all pre-existing conditions like a company sponsored plan, there will probably be a period of time that you will need to hold the policy (with maternity coverage) before you'll be able to make ANY claims against it. We got my wife individual coverage through Blue Cross & Blue Shield and we had to wait 12 months before we could make any claims against the maternity coverage. Her policy was about $330 per month and din't cover any other pre-exisiting conditions.

Be VERY careful with individual plans as it is MUCH easier for the insurance companies to deny claims based on your prior medical history. They can take prior treatment as a diagnosis of a pre-exisiting condition, even if you've not been formally diagnosed, and can use this as grounds to either deny claims or revoke coverage completely.

Like others have said, if you can hold off on trying for a baby until one or both of you is covered under a "catch all" company plan, I believe that would the best way for you to insure that all claims are covered.

As a side note, although we are now covered under the Blue Cross plan if we wanted to try for a baby, they have just increased the premium to over $400 per month so my wife will be moving to a newly setup work policy when open enrollment begins in August.

Mark

I have kaiser,we pay a lot monthly but it covers all big things including pregnancy and delievery...I love kaiser always good service..I would advice..As for dental plan i am having goldwest and are not very happy..anybody knows whats the best insurance for dental that covers the most?