Optima Health - A Health Insurer that Discriminates Against Same Sex Couples

It is only within the last couple of years that Virginia law has allowed employers to offer health insurance benefits to domestic partners of their employees. Sadly, even though the Virginia General Assembly has finally enacted legislation that allows employers - both large and small - to offer health care coverage to the domestic partners of their employees (it was the last state in the USA to do so), many health insurance providers continue to discriminate against same sex couples. A case in point is Optima Health - an affiliate of Sentara Health Care Systems which has a near monopoly in hospital care facilities in the Hampton Roads of Virginia. Yes, it's true that on the Virginia Peninsula Riverside Health Systems has dodged a Sentara take over so far, as has Chesapeake General Hospital and two Catholic owned hospitals in the region.

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Obviously, the disingenousness of the Optima Health logo above is obvious if your business is a gay owned business or employs partnered gays as employees (i.e., like my business). In that case, one is SOL unless your company has over 100 employees. That's right, Optima does not offer coverage to partners of covered employees of businesses in small group plans. While individual policies for non-covered domestic partners may be available, they typically (1) cost considerably more and (2) have significantly inferior coverage. Personally, I find this situation outrageous.

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I urge readers who believe that Optima's discriminatory practices need to go to contact Optima via one of the following avenues (locals also have the option of patronizing a non-Sentara controlled hospital until such time as Optima's anti-gay discrimination ends):
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Optima Health
4417 Corporation Lane
Virginia Beach, VA 23462
Main number: (757) 552-7401
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Carol Via Flynn
Corporate Director
Marketing & Communications
cavia@sentara.com

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Emma Inman, APR
Director, Corporate Communications
eainman@sentara.com

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Becky Lawson, APR
Corporate Communications Consultant
rrlawson@sentara.com

Big Pharma's Wasteful Advertising

Just watching the NBC Evening News a few minutes ago I was yet again struck by the amount of needless, wasteful spending by the big pharmaceutical companies. In the half-hour broadcast there were five (5) ads - all for prescription drugs that no consumer can purchase on their own. Only doctors and physician assistants can write the required prescriptions, yet here we are with countless millions of dollars spent nationwide daily to market to viewers who cannot make the decision to prescribe the drugs pushed in the ads. Meanwhile, of course, the drug company reps are likewise spending lavishly entertaining doctors and physician assistants pushing the same drugs. My sister - a physician assistant - says that the drug reps she interfaces with market to her and others on the medical staff only at the very, very best [and most expensive] restaurants in town.

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With all the discussion of health care reform and the insane cost of many prescription drugs, I am baffled why no one has argued for the immediate cessation of such wasteful advertising spending by pharmaceutical companies with the savings passed on to the consumer. This kind of advertising makes no practical sense, particularly in a nation where over 47 million citizens have no health insurance coverage.

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Another wasteful example of a broken health care system is the monopoly games played by many non-profit hospital systems that place little focus on the provision of health care but great effort into wiping out competition. Tied this insanity is advertising by non-profit hospital systems that already have a near market monopoly. Locally, Sentara Health Systems is a case in point. Sentara controls five of the seven local hospitals in south Hampton Roads and has much more state of the art facilities than its competitors - two hospitals owned by the sisters of Bon Secours - yet Sentara continues massive television and print advertising campaigns. Why? And why can't this wasteful spending be eliminated so that savings could be passed along to consumers?

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One last question is this: why can't Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats ask these same questions?