COVERAGE: Pre-existing ... Condition?

"In November 2002, I was drugged and raped while I was on a business trip. I'm lucky to be alive," Christina Turner, 45, stated at the National Women's Law Center's launch of the "Being A Woman is Not A Pre-Existing Condition" campaign. 

After the attack, Chris was prescribed medication to help her cope with the trauma as well as anti-HIV medication to protect her against possible infection. Several months later, Chris needed to find new health insurance coverage in the individual market. Having worked in the insurance industry for several years, Chris understood that once you get rejected from one policy, it becomes increasingly difficult to find coverage in the future. She called several insurance companies and presented her story to them as a "hypothetical situation." Would they cover this rape victim?

"Nope, we won't take her."

Excuse me?

"Nope, we won't take her."

Her rape treatment was recognized as a pre-existing condition and provided reasonable grounds for denying coverage. Chris was told that this "hypothetical applicant" needed to be out of therapy for one or two years as well as test negative for HIV over the course of two to three years before becoming eligible for coverage. Bottom line: Chris was out of luck. Rape made her uninsurable.

Watch this rape victim speak about her effort to get mental health insurance coverage:

We have previously written about the cost and coverage disparities women experience in the insurance market. The Huffington Post Investigative Fund's citizen journalism project is examining the insurance industry and learning, through personal anecdotes, how private insurers handle claims. (Presently, insurance companies do not need to make their reasons for denying claims open to the public.) The research team received troubling stories from women, similar to Chris', reporting they had been denied insurance coverage as a result of rape, post-traumatic stress, STDs, sexual assault and domestic abuse.

However, Susan Pisano, spokeswoman for America's Health Insurance Plans, maintains that health plans do not deny coverage because someone was raped.

No, they do not. But as Sandra Park, staff attorney at the Women's Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, explains, rape does have a "discriminatory impact" and insurance practices "further discourage them [victims] from coming forward to law enforcement and seeking medical help."

"What are we supposed to tell women now? Well, I guess you have a choice -- you can risk your health insurance or you can risk AIDS. Go ahead and choose," said Diana Faugno, a forensic nurse and board director of End Violence Against Women International.

Even when a woman is covered, there are disagreements between physicians and insurance companies concerning when mental health services are deemed "medically necessary." Probing for details can be traumatizing to a victim, and one would think that denying care would be just as traumatizing to insurance representatives. Lois Gorwitz, previously employed with Magellan Behavior Health Services, Inc., one of the nation's largest managed-care companies, tells the Huffington Post that her superiors would tell her: "We are not denying this person treatment; we are denying them their benefit. If they want treatment they can still pay out of pocket."

The national health care debate has shed light on current insurance practices, and gives us an opportunity to resolve these inequities. Rape should not be a barrier to health care.