Years ago, I worked at a big aerospace company (that no longer exists). I was hiring a small team of software engineers. I was flat out told not to hire anyone who was, or wanted to be, pregnant. Why? Health care cost. We were self-insured, and a baby born with severe health problems could bankrupt our plan.
This story makes no sense: - How could a single baby born with health problems bankrupt a big aerospace company? - A man is just as likely to have a child with severe health problems as a woman even though he'll never be the pregnant one.
Lots of companies have self-funded groups, but join onto an insurance group for negotiating power. For instance, I have a plan like this and our partner-company is Cigna so I carry around a Cigna insurance card with the $FIRM plan.
Looking at the paperwork, the most expensive plan is $67 per week, with an $8,500 max out- of-pocket. $FIRM has (rounding up slightly) 500 employees. So let's say 500 employees x 67 dollars x 52 weeks = 1.742.000 dollars into the insurance pool per year, so two $1.000.00 pregnancies in a year would be devastating. If the pool was low, possibly bankrupting(?) - I'm not actually sure what the failure mode is here, if Cigna has some obligation at that point... guess I have an HR question tomorrow.