Man In Need Of Bone Marrow Transplant Finds His Health Coverage Terminated Over $0.26
Source: Consumerist
It appears that the question “Can anyone spare a quarter?” is not one you need to be worried about when your life is on the line. But one couple found out exactly how dire of a situation a little more than a quarter could get them into after the husband’s health coverage was terminated months before he was scheduled for a bone marrow transplant to treat his leukemia. The reason? A $0.26 shortfall on a monthly COBRA premium.
Karin Price Mueller of the New Jersey Star-Ledger spoke to the man’s wife, who inadvertently wrote a check for $518.00 instead of $518.26 when sending payment to Paychex, the company handling COBRA for her husband’s previous employer.
It was all a mistake, says the wife, one that almost cost her husband his life. Paychex cashed the check at first, and the man kept on receiving treatment. Then the hospital told him he didn’t have insurance coverage.
The wife contacted Paychex and says she was told for the first time that the payment had been off by $0.26. There was no option to bring the payment up-to-date either, she said. The couple had even paid the premium (besides that quarter) well before it was due. Paychex reportedly told her that her husband’s previous employer had instructed it not to accept any more payments.
Read more: http://consumerist.com/2013/08/12/man-in-need-of-bone-marrow-transplant-finds-his-health-coverage-terminated-over-0-26/
Original story: http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2013/08/bamboozled_life-saving_transpl.html#incart_m-rpt-1
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For those who don't want to read the linked articles: The man who needed the transplant got a lawyer, who filed a motion. The lawyer argued that the patient had to be notified of the shortfall in the premium payment, and that coverage couldn't be terminated over a de minimis (negligibly small) amount anyway. Paychex, the company handling the insurance claim, backed down. The life-saving transplant will go ahead next week.
We draw two lessons here. The first is the obvious one that these corporate profiteers are scum. The second, not mentioned by other posters in this thread, is that plaintiffs' lawyers are a crucial line of defense for individuals who are victimized by corporate depredations.
And I'm not saying that just because I'm a plaintiffs' lawyer. 
Props to my comrade-in-arms, Jeffrey Resnick, Esq., of Sherman, Silverstein, Kohl, Rose & Podolsky in Moorestown, New Jersey.