[batmansmk]

Had a job in SV, we moved to EU when my wife was pregnant. We would have loved to stay but as many of immigrant friends, we had difficulties figuring out how to be a happy family in USA. We couldn’t afford a house, education without becoming slaves to our career and not to feel threaten by the constantly changing immigration policy.

[withinboredom]

As an American who moved to the EU after having a child in the US, when I tell people we had to pay for our son on a payment plan, they cringe. Yes, we had insurance, but ironically, the calculated conception date was 2 days before we got insurance -- reality is that we got insurance when we decided to have a kid, so the calculated date is actually wrong. Thus, it was a pre-existing condition and insurance wouldn't cover it. True story.

[em500]

Yet every EU country has either the same or lower fertility rate than in the US.

[blackoil]

May sound cruel, but I don't find that outrageous. Purpose of insurance is to pool the risk. 100 people pay 1$, one unlucky fellow meets an accident gets 98.

In case of pregnancy/delivery it is not a truly random event so society will have to pool for a planned event. For such events we need government support proxying for society not some insurance company.

[EForEndeavour]

You don't think it's outrageous or at least cringeworthy that an insurance company used a one-size-fits-all, deterministic, possibly opaque and proprietary math formula to estimate an inherently fuzzy date based on a chain reaction of biological processes with duration error bars far exceeding one day, and then mechanically making an all-or-nothing coverage decision because of a TWO-DAY difference between that speciously precise date and the date on which enrollment forms were filed?

That may be the way the contracts and laws are currently set up, and if we want to have a child without going bankrupt, we have to play the game. But it's simultaneously possible to recognize that the system produces some deeply ridiculous cases such as this one.

[withinboredom]

Yes, the purpose is to pool risk, but nobody expects to need insurance within days of purchasing it. An insurance company worming out of it due to 'technicalities' is kind-of shitty when the cost of having a child is >30k USD and they can negotiate it down to 10k -- but as a regular Joe, you have no negotiation powers.