Vermont lawmakers weigh midwife insurance mandate

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Vermont lawmakers weigh midwife insurance mandate

Measure would require coverage for home births.

MONTPELIER -- Midwives who aren't nurses have been licensed in Vermont since

2000, but private health insurers have yet to cover home births the midwives

oversee.

A Senate bill pending in the House would require insurance companies such as

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont to pay for the prenatal care, deliveries

and aftercare these licensed midwives provide.

Insurance companies object. Gretkowski, lobbyist for MVP Health Care,

asked members of the House Health Care Committee Thursday why they would

consider placing another mandate on insurers in the same year they undertake a

major health reform initiative intended to curb health care costs.

Supporters of the midwife bill countered that the midwife insurance mandate fits

in with the goals of the pending reform bill. The health reform package is

intended to head the state toward a more efficient coverage system that would

ensure all Vermonters access to essential medical care, supporters say.

On the cost question, supporters note home births by midwives cost less than

deliveries in hospitals.

Lawlor of Putney, a licensed midwife who has been delivering babies since

1981, said her " global fee " for prenatal and post-birth visits, plus delivery,

is $3,500. Families also pay $400 for the trained assistant or second midwife

who would also be present at the birth.

State regulators listed the 2009 price of a vaginal birth without complications

at Fletcher Health Care as $6,803. That price didn't include prenatal care

or physician charges.

Members of the House Health Care Committee asked two insurance representatives

if they thought the midwife mandate would increase the cost of insurance for all

customers.

" I don't think there would be significant change, " Leigh Tofferi of Blue Cross

and Blue Shield of Vermont told the panel. He acknowledged that home births were

cheaper than hospital births.

" It is not going to be significant, " Gretkowski concurred. Still, she worried

that providing coverage would encourage more women to choose home births with

midwives. " If there is a bad outcome, there is a high liability there. " ...

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110429/NEWS03/104290306/Vermont-law\

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