Stop Termination of Pregnant Employee Health Benefits in NYS!!!

Pregnancy and childbirth can be the most vulnerable time of a woman’s life and the risk of complications during pregnancy or childbirth is a very real one as I have personally experienced. Expectant mothers need access to time off before and after birth without fear of losing their health insurance coverage.

In New York State, most employees who reside in NYS or work in NYS will not have guaranteed health care coverage when on maternity leave. Meaningful access to leave, including the maintenance of health insurance coverage while on maternity leave and/or disability leave while pregnant, is essential to the health and economic security of working women and their families.

Employers who have operations in New York State should be required to continue providing employer-sponsored health benefits for expectant employees on maternity leave/maternity-disability leave without added economic stress of COBRA’s high premiums.  This would help close the gap in the law that put pregnant women and new mothers at risk of losing employer-spnosored health insurance coverage at the time they need it most.

Unfortunately the lack of this type of law lead to me being denied the same health insurance benefits I had while physically working. I became high-risk,  could not work, was put on bed rest, given a procedure that was supposed to maintain my pregnancy. Because my employer sponsored health insurance terminated me and I could not afford the $855 COBRA premiums and high deductible I was denied the necessary medical care I needed to follow-up with the appropriate care to preserve my pregnancy and maintain quality prenatal care for my daughter, Chloe-McKayla.

Chloe-McKayla was eventually stillborn in NYS because the doctors gave me secondary prenatal care because my employer sponsored health insurance was terminated. My doctors literally made comments like, “because of your insurance changed we can’t…” or “ I can no longer see you because you don’t have private insurance.” The doctor who performed the cerclage on me refused to see me after my employer-sponsored health insurance was terminated

Days before my daughter died I did not feel her moving; I had a doctor’s appointment and asked for a fetal non-distress test. The doctor said no, he’d do it at the next appointment because if he keeps charging Medicaid they’d start investigating him. I did not make that next appointment because within 5 days my daughter was stillborn. Had my employer-sponsored health insurance not been terminated, that doctor would had given me that fetal non-distress test and I would of have maintained the quality prenatal care I had before my employer-sponsored health insurance was terminated.

The appropriate steps to address this problem needs to be taken in the State of New York such as enacting this law so that expectant employees will be allowed to maintain their employer-sponsored health benefits at the same premium rates instead of replacing it with COBRA’s high premium rates. Women make up nearly half of the New York State workforce.

This bill is to gain support for all expectant employees who either work in New York State or reside in New York State, including but not limited to transportation workers such as flight attendants such as myself. The passage of this bill is tremendously important for pregnant workers, who unlike me, can now be assured that they will have continued health care while they are on pregnancy disability leave.

Please support this movement by signing this petition. I thank you in advance for all your support.