Yet Another Stellar Reason We Need Health Care Reform

As HuffPo's Ryan Grim reports, health insurance companies will use anything to justify charging people higher premiums, including domestic violence, and Republicans are too busy doing backflips to justify the insurance companies being able to do this.

It turns out that in eight states, plus the District of Columbia, getting beaten up by your spouse is a pre-existing condition.

Under the cold logic of the insurance industry, it makes perfect sense: If you are in a marriage with someone who has beaten you in the past, you're more likely to get beaten again than the average person and are therefore more expensive to insure.

In human terms, it's a second punishment for a victim of domestic violence.

In 2006, Democrats tried to end the practice. An amendment introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), now a member of leadership, split the Health Education Labor & Pensions Committee 10-10. The tie meant that the measure failed.

All ten no votes were Republicans, including Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming), a member of the "Gang of Six" on the Finance Committee who are hashing out a bipartisan bill. A spokesman for Enzi didn't immediately return a call from Huffington Post.

At the time, Enzi defended his vote by saying that such regulations could increase the price of insurance and make it out of reach for more people. "If you have no insurance, it doesn't matter what services are mandated by the state," he said, according to a CQ Today item from March 15th, 2006.

Besides the obviously horrible reasoning for making battered women pay more for insurance (I mean honestly, how much of an asshole do you have to be to work in the insurance industry?) the fact that Sen. Mike Enzi that's doing everything he can to kill an affordable public option is the same exact Mike Enzi that justified this odious practice because he was worried about private insurance becoming unaffordable is just peachy.

How nice.