I am a bankruptcy lawyer in Florida and every week I meet people who want to start over with their lives and get rid of overwhelming debt. Sometimes the debt is their own fault because they misuse credit cards or gamble. Maybe their business failed; maybe they lost their job and were now living way above their means. The cases that really touch a nerve are those people who have health insurance issues and are now facing thousands of dollars in medical bills through no fault of their own.
One client was fighting breast cancer and lost her job and health insurance through cutbacks with her company. She was responding well to the cancer treatments, and without them she was certain to die. Her health insurance company wouldn’t insure her through COBRA, so she continued her treatments and medication using credit cards to pay for everything. When she came to me, her cancer was in remission, and her credit card debt was over $150,000.
Another man came to me after he had been in a car accident and had been in a coma for several weeks. He had just gotten a new job and his health insurance would kick in after a 90-day probation period. When he got into his car, life was good and he had everything to look forward to. Without warning and without knowing it, he ended up in the hospital unconscious with several broken bones. After he woke up he had to stay in the hospital for a while and eventually was moved to a nursing home to get therapy. He lost his job, and now he was about to lose his house. The accident was the other person’s fault, and neither the other driver nor my client had the proper car insurance to cover my client’s injuries. Without the proper car insurance and certainly without health insurance, this man now had hospital and doctor bills well into the six figures.
A third client came to me with about $110,000 in hospital bills because of his child’s kidney transplant. His health insurance started paying for his child’s medical procedures. Then he lost his full coverage without his or the hospital’s knowledge. Since no one knew the insurance had changed, the doctors continued to treat the child and he even got the kidney transplant he needed. But the insurance company refused to pay many of the bills when they were turned in. The problem was my client had been working full-time but his hours were cut to part-time hours as a cost-saving measure for his company. He didn’t lose his insurance completely, but it was cut back proportionately. He had coverage for doctor visits, trips to the emergency room and over-night stays in the hospital, but his insurance cap was lowered considerably. Any charges over that cap had to be paid for out of pocket. What was really ironic was the operation was done early in December so the child could be home by Christmas. If they had waited until January, the next year’s coverage would have started with a new cap, and my client wouldn’t have been in this situation.
People come into my office all of the time dealing with overwhelming medical expenses. Inadequate health insurance can ruin a person’s life if they have the misfortune of facing accidents and illnesses such as these. In catastrophic events, medical expenses can soar out of control very quickly.
