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New York, 2:53 AM
Tue Nov 10
67 posts in the last 24 hours
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03/13/09
Won't the baby will have to be adopted by the non-bio dad. Won't the surrogate mother will have to give the baby up for adoption (I know there are surrogate agreements etc, but if it is her egg and she is carrying the baby...)
Yes, complicated and maybe questionable use of medical care, but if the baby is technically the mother's child up until she gives it up, I doubt they are going to go after these women.
03/13/09
Tricare, the military insurance, has been under fire for the past few years for being too costly. This cost may get past down to ALL military families and they will be forced to pay more out of pocket whether active or retired. So for all the military families that can barely make ends meet and rely on WIC and food stamps, this would translate to ~$100/month they will no longer have if Congress decides Tricare needs an overhall.
Awesome that Howard and her husband support one another. Awesome that this great gay couple is getting a child. Taking advantage of the military healthcare system? Totally not awesome.
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For that alone, I admire her. I've never been pregnant, and I'm NOT enjoying that phase, well in advance.
03/13/09
Yeah, I have never been pregnant either and I think it sounds really un-enjoyable.
03/13/09
I am not a happy, glowy pregnant gal.
03/13/09
I've seen people be saddled with astronomical healthcare and college tuition bills, when the military retroactively bills for these services rendered after an armed service member is convicted of "fraudulent enlistment" (finding out someone is gay or popping pos on a drug test, for example), with no recourse in U.S. courts. Couldn't they do this to a family that did this?
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03/13/09
I'm the wife of a naval officer, so I'd have the free healthcare and so on, but I've never been impressed with the military health system--90 percent of the time, it seems like the old cliché of "they're there 'cos they have nowhere else to go" seems just as true for the doctors, and it's scary.
When I had the mini-Zinhas, the place where we were stationed did not have obstetrical care at the military hospital, so I was referred out...to a clinic that primarily serviced Medicaid patients. Like the military doc situation, not all of these free clinics are crap, but there is definitely a difference in standard of care.
And it was STILL more competent than anything I'd seen at the Navy hospitals.
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03/13/09
The Navy has one of the best Family Practice residency programs in the U.S., the reason he resigned his surgery residency to go back into the Navy when he could have gone elsewhere. My care in the Naval Hospital at Cherry Point, NC, was extremely good; I couldn't have asked for more.
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Sorry about your bad experience - rotten cacti have no place in the medical profession! They should stay out in the desert with the snakes and coyotes, where they belong.
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The stay-at-home mother did not like to admit it, but she could use the money. Howard stretched every dollar of Brian's $56,000 yearly income, wearing old clothes, clipping coupons, shopping for sales at Wal-Mart and occasionally tapping the food pantry at the Armed Services YMCA. She had worked part time at a clothing store in the local mall, but quit when her husband was sent back to the Middle East. Surrogacy money would provide a much-needed safety net for her children, Maria, 14, Anthony, 12, Ezekiel, 10, Tacina, 8, Chaeli, 4, and Izaac, 16 months.
I'm not judging her for the decision she made but I think it speaks to the continued lack of financial support that military families face that surrogacy becomes a legitimate option for income. Pregnancy is not an easy thing and she's put her health on the line. So, instead of being simply happy for her and the couple, I think we should be asking why we often only pay lip service to military families.
03/13/09
QUIT BULLSHITTIN' US, NAVY.
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56,000 dollars... is not an insignificant amount of money to be raising a family on. My mom is is nearing 60 and her pay is only dipping above that, and for a number of years my father was disabled and unable to work. The difference is my parents made a conscious decision to stop after 2 kids (they have a 3rd now and she's an oops baby, but it's basically 1 kid on that salary as opposed to three because I'm old and my sister is old and they don't support us).
It is probably very difficult to raise a family of 8 on that salary. But they must have realized the financial constraints they were facing, I dunno around baby 3 and stopped having kids. .
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It's not her baby and it's not Brian's baby. It's the couple's baby, so I think they (the couple) should pay for the medical care. The military is funded by tax dollars, so now I'm paying for the baby.
I grew up as an ARMY brat and I received free medical care, but was the actual child of a military officer, so it's not really the same.
I know, financially speaking, that they need the money because he's not getting paid enough, but I'm not sure about this.
I am genuinely very conflicted.
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03/13/09
This also makes it sound like the only health being taken into consideration is that of the fetus. Pregnancy is a women's health issue - not just a fetus health issue.
03/13/09
03/13/09
The military health care system is taxed enough as it is. Adoption is very different - wombs-for-hire is a business and should be treated as such.
03/13/09
So surrogacy pregnancies don't receive coverage. What if this woman develops diabetes? Then she has to get her diabetes and her prenancy issues handled by two different insurers and almost certainly two different doctors/healthcare systems?
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03/13/09
@DuchessofHazards: I'm definitely going to disagree with your statement here though. Pregnancy is technically a medical condition affecting the pregnant woman; it's only been relatively recently that we (the collective we) even considered looking at a pregnancy from the perspective of the fetus. The fact that it's someone else's fertilized egg in there actually has no relevance, imo. The woman is still the recipient of the healthcare.
03/13/09
What I am not thrilled about is tax-payer money that funds military healthcare is being used for it. If the French couple wants a kid, I think they should pay the healthcare costs, not taxpayers.
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03/13/09
we can't get proper medical care to u.s. citizens who need it, yet people who aren't even u.s. citizens can use our government/military health insurance plans to their own uses. of course money changes hands and what not, but on a fundamental level, there's something wrong.
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03/13/09
...what? This is absolutely offensive. Surrogate mothers seem like the kind of woman that would accept and endure anything baby-related with serenity and patience, since they're making a conscious choice about it.
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taking hormones and all of that jazz out of it...on some level, i'm sure it's easy to not complain or cry when the surrogates have great health insurance and are working with doctors that they already know and trust.
03/13/09
I'm not saying this well, damnit.