Crowley New Born with heart problems denied Health Insurance

[Grainraiser]

That clears things up for me. My question would be who has the money to pay for the delivery of a child out of pocket. That in itself is not cheap.

[TXNGL]

Originally Posted by lone sailor

They have a policy on their other children, but not for themselves. If they had coverage on themselves, the insurance company is saying that they would have overlooked the pre-existing condition and covered the baby.

So they (the insurance co) say. They can say anything they want after the fact. Somehow I don't think this is true, particularly after having dealt with Blue Cross in our family.

[PanTerra]

The ins companies are now just biding their time, before they go out of business.

[TXNGL]

Originally Posted by Grainraiser

That clears things up for me. My question would be who has the money to pay for the delivery of a child out of pocket. That in itself is not cheap.

Lots of people in Texas! We moved back here from Massachusetts, where insurance companies had to include women's healthcare, including pregnancy, many years ago. When we moved here, insurance companies were hardly required to cover any reproductive health issues at all- pregnancy, pap screenings...I was amazed. I think some of that has changed now.

[loves2read]

I'm sure bankrucptcy will be a viable option for them at this point

the idea that bankruptcy should be a viable option for a family in this situation is just wishing to jump out of the fire, into the frying pan...

if this couple did declare bankruptcy because of these medical expenses, the people who are criticizing them for not buying cost-prohibitive insurance will just demean a bankruptcy choice as "evading responsibility" and "taking the easy way out"...

Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies - CNN.com

Medical Bills Leading Cause of Bankruptcy, Harvard Study Finds

Daily Dose - New Study: Bankruptcy Tied To Medical Bills

there are people who oppose the health care bill and providing a more universal health care system by always reverting back to the idea of people taking responsibility for their actions/choices...that it is not government's responsibility to provide full coverage to anyone who lives in the US...but I don't think you will find many people who have filed for bankruptcy because of medical bills or who have lost their insurance because of losing their job and been unable to afford even a basic level of insurance coverage at a FAIR PRICE who are promoting that view...

IF Congress would take away the ability of insurance companies to hide behind anti-trust protectionism there might develop a more competitive aspect to the industry but I think that is not going to happen any time soon...

Case in point--almost all people would agree that as an industry/profession public schools are pretty uniform in the state of TX--almost every one has employees paying into the Teacher Retirement system, their calendar is set by the state legislature as is the base salary, most of the rules and regs the individual districts follow regarding students' curricula and professional standards for teachers and admins, the UIL regulates their sports and other extra curricular activities, and their residents serve on school boards and control their tax base...

YET--within the state of Texas there is no ONE health care plan that serves all the active public ISDs in the state or even within a local region like Region X for Dallas area or Region XI for the Tarrant area side--
it is perfectly possible that districts that lie side by side, have similar number and ages of employees, have similar amounts of claims in a give year--have totally different insurance companies and costs for insurance coverages...even though many of the covered employees in different districts live and work in close proximity to each other, use the same doctors and dentists and hospitals...
WHY aren't districts allowed to pool their employees in order to gain a larger risk pool and lower rates for better coverage--BECAUSE 1) the insurance industry has a huge lobby effort in this state, and 2) the legislature decided it was not "good policy" to allow districts to pool their insurance coverage because it would cut down "competition"--
yeah--really--
the fact that the only ones who benefit from selling separate coverage to individual ISDs are the insurance companies seems to have escaped the legislature's notice/sensibilities...

the fact that ALL public ISD employees who retire and are eligible for continuing health insurance through TRS buy into a STATE-WIDE plan with three tiers of coverage--so that anywhere they lived/worked in the state-they are basically members of the same plan apparently escaped the attention of the legislature or I guess they would rework it to make it more competitive and have then buy insurance based on their past employment.

[Spree]

I wonder if Shriners can help this baby?

[lone sailor]

Dad Wins Fight for Son's Health Coverage (http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/health/040110-dad-wins-fight-for-son's-health-coverage - broken link)

DALLAS - A father fighting for insurance coverage (http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/health/040110-dad-wins-fight-for-son's-health-coverage# - broken link) for his newborn has finally gotten the response he wanted.
Baby Houston Tracy was born on March 15 and immediately needed life-saving open heart surgery.
Doug Tracy said neither he nor his wife have health insurance (http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpp/health/040110-dad-wins-fight-for-son's-health-coverage# - broken link) because they are self employed. But they have policies with Blue Cross Blue Shield for their older children.
They contacted the insurance company before Houston was born. They were told they needed to wait.
But after Houston was born his application was denied. The insurance company claimed he had a pre-existing condition.
Blue Cross Blue Shield told FOX 4 it does not comment on specific cases, but if a mother is covered her newborn is too.
Houston’s mother does not have a policy, so his application had to be considered individually. And, his heart condition existed before the application was filed.

“I’m not backing down from this fight because I don’t understand how something can be pre-existing when he didn’t exist yet. He was still in the womb and there was no way to detect that,” Tracy said during a previous interview.
Now after a media blitz that included a Facebook page and several news stories, Tracy said Blue Cross Blue Shield did an about face.
They decided to cover Houston from the day of his birth through March 26, including the costly surgery. In the future he will be covered by a Texas Health Insurance Risk Pool policy.
Tracy said he just wants to get back to being a dad.
“I think that they had to step up and do the right thing. And, I feel blessed that they did,” he said.

[loves2read]

you aren't suppose to COPY the article info except for short passage--just put the link so others can go to article on that web site I think