What for-profit health-care horror stories have you heard of or experienced??

[Dems Will Win]

Please post below the for-profit healthcare horror stories you have heard of or experienced. Just put in the ones that involved the profit motive overiding medical advice or HMO shenaninagins in general.

I'd love to hear of outright policy that is patently unfair.

We need to get these out in the open.

Please RECOMMEND to get a larger pool of stories.

[YOY]

1. We were on Major Medical and my wife had abdominal pains

It could have been appendicitis. We went to the emergency room and were told to wait. I was helpless as my wife clutched her stomach with tears rolling down her face. I helped her to the bathroom and we were shuffled from one room to the next. They told us she would need a CAT scan on her abdomen but our insurance would not cover us. While we pondered over whether we could afford this my wife's stomach stopped aching and we used OUR OWN medical knowledge to understand that she was not sensitive in the appendix area when touched there.

We fought with the doctors just to get released and to go home. The doctor we had was incredibly rude to us and as far as we were concerned they were just trying to get every penny out of us as most of the folks there in the ER were homeless and not capable of paying but were being given the minimal help that they were forced to give...they couldn't pay them back so we obviously had to go over the barrel as we at least had a little insurance. She gave us the line: "How can you put a price on your health?" My always acerbic wife retorted: "You obviously are." and we stormed out.

The trip without the CAT scan for minimal care (some IVs and some rudimentary inspection): 2000$+. That's 2000$ that we did not have and it took 1 1/2 years to pay off once I was finally employed.

Later we found out it was just a pendicular fibroid 2 years later when we had decent medical coverage and a great OB/GYN.

We will take care of it once we can nail down some proper money but it is not lifethreatening nor constantly (or even frequently) uncomfortable.

[PA Democrat]

2. My story here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=1203488

[Emit]

3. Well, just recently

And this is a Medicare issue, but, IMO, it falls into the category of short changing patients to save a buck.

My elderly father had a cardiac catheterization -- (the same kind that Gupta gave as an example when he was on King last night with Moore). Not only did he have to wait a week and a half for the procedure, even though it was clear he was having TIA's (small strokes that cause intermittent short periods of temporary blindness -- and was probably the cause of his memory loss), but, they sent him home (he lives alone, in a mobile home) following the procedure with no medical oversight.

Fortunately, my sis, who is an MD took him to her house that night. Overnight, he bled out under his thigh muscle and ended up with a hematoma the size of a football! -- he almost died -- had she not been there, he would be dead now. She had to call an ambulance to get him to ER. The doc who did the catheterization had erred by puncturing the backside of his vein, and that caused the bleeding.

Long story short, and this is the part I'm getting at, he subsequently had to go under the knife to have this blood clot removed and ended up with 20+ stitches from his crotch 10 inches down his thigh. This is an old man with pre-existing health problems. They then sent him home --AGAIN -- two days later because Medicare would not cover his hospital stay. I stayed with him a couple of days at his home, and on the day that I was to leave, he was in so much pain and discomfort -- his leg was so swollen -- that I ended up back in the ER with him that night.

Each time in this case my dad's care was neglected because Medicare would not cover the cost of hospitalization based NOT on the specific circumstances of his case but on some person in a cubicle somewhere saying he didn't meet the requirement. The man almost died. The docs screwed up (I think he's got a malpractice suit, personally), causing him more pain and harm, and Medicare sez, "Sorry, you're not sick enough old man. Go home to your empty house and take care of yourself! Too bad about the football sized blood clot they just took out of your leg and the fact that you can't walk or that you are high risk for heart attack or stroke."

Also, we had to convince the doctor to get Medicare to cover a home health nurse -- something that you should think under the circumstances that would be standard procedure if they're gonna send him home to fend for himself. No, we had to convince the doc's office -- and , they said to us several times that home health nurses are covered by Medicare only if there is medical necessity. Hello! By the time the nurse showed up, his incision was infected.

I can't even type anymore -- I'm just rambling on -- I was so mad and it's making me sad and mad all over again. I'm sorry if this isn't very coherent.

[Dems Will Win]

8. Jeez

[Cleita]

4. I have so many, the first being denied coverage with traditional

insurance because of a pre-existing condition, asthma. Then I was able to get Kaiser-Permanente through my employer. It at least covered most medical care with a small co-pay, but navigating the system, an HMO, was a nightmare with months' waits to get to see a doctor. Often the condition cured itself before you had a chance to see a physician but those were months of discomfort and pain trying to get through the work day regardless while you felt sick. Sure they would see you in emergency or urgent care but even then you spent hours waiting in line to see a doctor who gave you palliative care and an appointment with your primary care physician never less than three months down the road.

Only once was I seen right away in the clinic by my primary care physician because I stalked her in the parking lot when she came to work and coughed up some really disgusting mucous in front of her. She took me right away ahead of the other patients and had to actually argue down the gatekeepers on the front desk to get me admitted. It was in the nick of time too because I badly needed the meds to alleviate my condition right then and there not three months down the line. This was back in the early eighties so I don't know if it's still as bad as then.

Then there was my husband's experience with a Medicare HMO which he had signed away his Medicare rights for promises of full coverage including meds with a small co-pay. First we found out that few medical practices wanted to accept this HMO. Then when we went on vacation and he ended up with an emergency they refused to pay because the doctors and tests weren't done through an approved emergency visit first.

He had a stroke when we were out in the forest. I had to have the local logger volunteer firemen/paramedics take him out of the forest to get him to a small clearing where he could be transported by helicopter to Spokane, the nearest hospital. This was in the day before many people had cell phones and I couldn't call the HMO until I reached a phone booth on the road. In the meantime he had been admitted to the emergency room and admitted to the hospital before I got there driving. (The helicopter had no space for me.)

The HMO denied everything. Then when we found out why he had the stroke, renal failure, and they denied any expense involving that as it was one of the medical conditions they didn't cover. We went back on traditional Medicare so he could be covered, but we were out all that money that was his Medicare money that they took for their bottom line.

For myself, when we moved out of state, I lost my Kaiser Permanente coverage that I had kept under COBRA when I left my job. I had no coverage for several years because the insurers wouldn't cover me. Then the laws changed and the insurers had to offer some kind of coverage. Of course then this is when they cooked up the idea of huge deductibles and hefty premiums. For all intents and purposes I maintained coverage in case I got a catastrophic disease, but the way it worked out was that I was paying almost a third of our income in premiums and the medical care I needed that I had to pay out of pocket anyway because of the deductible but I was still stuck with their rules and their doctors. I had no choice.

I kept my fingers crossed that I would remain well enough as my husband's unpaid caregiver until he died. I was able to go on Medicare two months after his passing, which is what I have today. You can imagine everytime some Repug gets up and starts railing against Medicare breaking the budget I start seeing red.

[mitchtv]

5. I was refused a live saving Liver transplant

In 1992 they said it was experimental cause it was Hep B. They were using old rules that Hep B "problem" had been successfully overcome by science a while earlier. Luckily I used open enrollemnt to change HMOs
and here I am.

[Emit]

6. Okay, I have another one, that has cost me more than $12,000 so far

My daughter has TMD (Temporomandibular Disorders) and our insurance will not cover the treatment. She is now 16 and she's had this problem since she was 8. We have seen doctor after doctor, more than 13 that I can count off the top of my head. We have purposefully changed insurances to try to get treatment -- and none, NONE, will cover orthognathic surgery, orthotic devices, TMD treatment, braces, etc. as they are considered elective "cosmetic surgery." Oh, just forget the fact that I have a beautiful young girl who, because of her TMD now has prominent changes in her bite, can't enjoy a sandwich or artichoke, used to cry herself to sleep sometimes with the pain, was taking strong medicines since the age of 8, including muscle relaxers, has been told it's all in her head, pfft -- arrgghhh!

Again, I will now quit this rant.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. Heard one from my doctor

She has a patient who has heart problems, but that's not all. Another condition (which the doctor wouldn't relate-wanted to get the story told without breaking privacy) needed to be addressed. There were two medications the patient could take-one would interfere with her heart medication, the other would not. The insurance company would only pay for the one that would interfere with her heart medication. The doctor told her her choices-take the insurance-paid for medicine and risk complications with her heart, pay for the other medicine out of pocket, or not take the other medicine. The patient chose to not take any medication for this new condition, because she couldn't afford to pay for it out of pocket and didn't want to risk her heart. So she still suffers from the other condition without any relief.

She mentioned this after watching "Sicko", as an example of insurance companies deciding care by what they will and won't cover.

[HeraldSquare212]

9. $1M donor

I know someone who works at a large urban hospital. For $1M donation, people get VIP cards - and when they come in to the hospital and flash the VIP card, workers are required to drop everything and attend to them. I suppose that's not a horror story, unless you're the poor person bleeding out in the corner.

[Dems Will Win]

11. THis is absolutely amazing and points out the whole unfairness of the system!!

[Firespirit]

10. Here's mine

My mother, who is in her 50s, had a benign cystic breast tumor that her OB/GYN monitored for a decade. The doctor told her about two years after he discovered it that he suspected it would turn malignant someday, and asked if she wanted it to be removed immediately. She looked into it, and discovered that her insurance policy considered it an "unnecessary procedure" and "elective surgery" because there was no actual disease, and if she wanted to go ahead with removal, it'd be completely, 100 percent, on her own dime. She couldn't afford it.

Last summer the tumor did turn malignant. The doctor was able to remove it with surgery only, because he'd been watching it for so long, but only after she was diagnosed with BREAST CANCER did the insurance company decide to pay for the surgery. Now it is on her permanent medical record, and because it was internal cancer, she will always have that in her body. Someday it will probably have a recurrence, in one organ or another. Preventive medicine at a doctor's advice, which would have stopped all this, was an "elective surgery" according to the insurance.

[Dems Will Win]

12. And Free Single-Payer Insurance is bad

because there were some lines for elective procedures in England once?

[compote_tom]

29. That's a perfect example

The insurance company has no real interest in a patient's long term health(preventative medicine). But only responds when it is absolutely critical. Had she been put on a 6 month waiting list the tumor would've been removed well before it became malignant. Private health is better because??????

[Lydia Leftcoast]

13. When I first started my translation business, I stayed on COBRA from

my previous employer for a few months (It was reasonable back in 1993), but then I needed to find another insurer.

The first place I applied offered me insurance at a reasonable price, but with several exclusions. Namely, I couldn't be covered for anything I'd ever had before or been suspected of having before. That meant no coverage for cancer (because I'd had a negative biopsy once), no coverage for mental or emotional disorders (because of one bout of depression), no coverage for allergies (mine are mostly under control, but as my brother the doctor commented, "What if you go into anaphylactic shock from some previously unknown allergy like a wasp sting?"), and even, get this, no coverage for broken bones, because I'd broken my arm when I was ten.

After a coupple of ridiculous offers like this, I was accepted for an individual policy with Kaiser-Permanente of Oregon. From about 1993 to 2001, they were bureaucratic but reasonable in both costs and practices. I paid affordable monthly premiums with no deductible, $10 copays for both office visits and tests, hospitalization at no extra cost, ambulance service for emergencies at $100. What could be better?

Things began to turn sour in 2002. Suddenly the copays were upped to $25 for office visists and tests, so that my annual gynecological exam now cost $100 instead of $40. There was a $200 a day copay for hospitalization, and a $500 ambulance charge. In addition, the monthly premium was now 150% higher than it had been in 1993. (What else went up 150% in that time period?)

I left Portland just in time to avoid being subjected to deductibles, only to arrive in Minneapolis to find that all three "competing" insurance companies offer the same high-deductible, high-premium policies for us self-employed, middle-aged people. Health Savings Accounts, which Republicans love to suggest to me, cost more per month in premiums plus you're supposed to set aside $200 a month. The hell with that.

I recently looked at the Kaiser website, and I would be paying $578 a month for my previous plan with even higher copays if I were still living in Portland.

[Yael]

14. My Dad was diagnosed with Mesothelioma in 3/2005 and given 6mos to a year

He was a 35 year corporate manager who retired with full benefits (pension, medical) in 1997. At the time of his diagnosis, he was 63 and paying over $600 a month for medical insurance.

In November 2005, we enrolled him in Hospice as there was nothing that could be done treatment-wise for this kind of cancer.

January 2006, new coverage began. 'Twas a self-funded plan by his former employer that was "managed" by Highmark Blue Shield. When the new year began, he had DMEs through Hospice in the form of a hospital bed, a shower stool, a cane, and his oxygen. He also had a regimin of medicines throughout the month and 2 visits from a Hospice nurse to check on his needs.

We were informed toward the end of the Jan that Dad was close to exhausting his medical benefits for the year. That is one month into a 12 month plan.

I called Highmark, who explained that while Hospice bills on a daily "per diem" (not per item), Dad's employer wrote the plan to state that he had 40 medical home visits per year max -- and that they had no choice but to count the "per diem" (for DME and meds) as home visits.

Thus, the 2 visits that were made were translated into 40 and he was 30 days into the year.

Hospice came and took away his hospital bed, his shower stool, his cane and his oxygen. They weren't happy about it -- but it was what Highmark demanded.

This is where I stepped into the finger pointing between Highmark and Dad's former employer. On Highmark, I challenged them that they took a contract that they (as the "experts") KNEW contradicted policy on the clause designed to cover it. On both, I threatened to find an attorney or go directly to the media -- whichever side of the coin toss came up. (I even offered them the opportunity to call heads or tails on the outcome. Heh.)

They pointed fingers for another couple of weeks, and then agreed to cover Dad to the spirit of the agreement (40 visits = 40 visits, not 40 days of a shower stool and oxygen tank).

Dad later died in Hospice in March 2007 -- less than 7 weeks after this all went down.

The high point to all of this was that one of my "demands" was that they cover ALL pensioners who were in this situation. Logic being that they (or I) found a clause in their contract that was deemed (by them) to be counter-intuitive. While they covered Dad, they denied that request. They informed me that each person with this contract who found themselves in this exact position would have to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Even though the issue was KNOWN and DOCUMENTED. Dad's case just happened to be the first.

At the time of Dad's death 3/26, there were 9 other pensioners in our town from his company in the same exact position as we were, and although the families were each battle worn from watching loved ones die -- each had to start from the beginning, begging Highmark to offer the coverage as the company had written. Each had to battle the phone calls, letters, etc. No leeway was given for the fact that this was a known issue. That, and there were 9 months left in the plan year at this point in time.

The CEO og Highmark made $3.2 million in 2006 -- the year this all took place. This salary on the backs of families with dying family members who had to fight for weeks to get the coverage they paid for. I guess every little bit (keeping someone from coverage for a few weeks) adds up...

Sorry this was so long. It is a complicated story.

[Dems Will Win]

15. Lie, cheat and stall -- neo fascist corporatist bastards!

[warren pease]

16. I'm looking for stories from international DUers whose medical systems actually work...

Hope you don't mind my inserting a self-serving link to my initial request:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1304392

And you get a free kick out of the deal.


wp

[KansDem]

17. My story (it is not nearly as horrendous as those I've read here)

Four years ago I suffered a heart attack. I was rushed to the hospital by ambulance at which time the paramedics did a quick blood test and found I had diabetes. I spent one week in the hospital, four weeks at home on medical leave (no paychecks and how the bills piled up!--still trying to catch up :(), and a couple of months at work on half-time status. Well, I went in for my 6-month checkup. I walked into the doctor's office and was asked for my co-pay. I had a $100 bill on me and presented it (this was right after payday and I often get a few hundred dollars in $100 bills to pay phone and utilities at pay-stations inside grocery stores when I shop for groceries). Anyway, I'm told that I would have to go break my bill. I "accept" this and start out the doctor's office when I think to myself, "Wait a minute! Why should I have to go and break this bill?" It was 8:45am; my bank was still closed and the only option available to me was a nearby grocery store's customer service desk. So I turned around and went back inside the office. The office clerk looked surprise to see me back so soon and asked, "Did you get change?" I said, "no." I explained it would be an inconvenience for me to have to drive around looking to break this bill, and that as a business they should accept my money. She said they couldn't accept the bill because they didn't have the change in their petty cash box. I said I would wait to see my doctor. They got real pissy with me; they let me sit there awhile, then asked me to come into the inner office. I went through the locked door thinking I was going to see my doctor, but I was stopped just inside the door and told I couldn't see the doctor. I asked way and was told there wasn't enough money in the change box (remember this is 8:45am so it's not like they had a busy day and gave out all their change). They simply would not let me see my doctor. I asked if they could bill me and was told "no." So I left in a huff.

When I got home I called the office to complain to the manager (he was in a meeting and "unavailable" when I was there). He explained the policy of getting the co-pay up front. I asked him why I couldn't have been billed and he said they couldn't do that because he had a problem with people in the past of not paying. I said I had the money and wanted to pay, but they wouldn't break my bill. He said they only had about $80 in the till. I said that wasn't my problem; they should have just billed me. He said they couldn't do that because of people not paying. I reminded him again that I had the money and was willing to pay, they just wouldn't accept my $100 bill. We went back and forth a few more times and I finally said that I found his excuse of not having enough money in the till to be flimsy at best considering this was coming from a industry that charges $5 for an aspirin tablet. I then told him he needed to post a sign in the office window like Baskin-Robbins ice cream palors do saying that they do not accept bills over $20. I told him to implement the Baskin-Robbins policy so future patients will know coming into the office that they would need exact change.

[Cleita]

18. Kick.

Needs only one more vote for the first page. Anyone?

[LaurenG]

19. Working in the health-care field I have many stories

from both a patient and physician viewpoint.

There is a huge problem with the insurance companies, including medicare. Both patients and physicians are forced to accept what the insurance company decides to pay.

The days of wealthy physicians are over, except in a few areas of specialty. The only people doing well are the CEO's in the insurance industry.

The relationship between physician and patient is symbiotic. If a patient has a claim denied the physician who saw the patient in good faith and accepting the contracted rates that insurers have given them (which is not much in most cases; check out your latest EOB to see for yourself)are now having to try to collect from the patient in order to be able to stay in business.

I place the blame once again squarely at the feet of corporate greed.

[annabanana]

20. We had to pay out of pocket for a hernia operation.

Mr Banana was in a serious car accident a couple of years ago. He was on work related travel, so the bills were picked up by Workman's Comp. When he was in his FIRST operating room, the Doc stopping the internal bleeding discovered an umbilibal hernia and repaired it. OWCP deemed it a pre-existing condition and wouldn't pay the doc for fixing it.

I didn't find out about the repaired hernia, or the lack of payment until I started getting the Doc's bill, well over a year later. I started sending the paperwork to our primary insurer. They denied payment because the request wasn't "timely". .I appealed . .they requested another set of the Dr's records, lost it. . (claimed I never sent it). . I sent them another copy (registered, insured, signature required) and they re-denied because the paperwork was too late. . I REAPPEALLED, they wanted Dr records sent directly from the Doctor. I had paid the Doctor out of pocket by that time (to protect our credit rating) and his office wasn't really interested in doing anymore paperwork for me at that point.

And that's where my will to fight died.

[spiderpig]

21. Too many to recount

Sad, isn't it, that at age 56 I hate to go to the doctor for fear of the consequences.

SHAME!

[mmonk]

22. My experiences (not necessarily a horror story) but just

an unnecessary burden of cost.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1302754&mesg_id=1302754

[Warren Stupidity]

23. It is quite simple: (1) get a life threatening illness.

(2) realize that if you stop working to focus on getting healthy you will lose your insurance;

(3) realize that if you ever have to buy your own insurance you are now blacklisted and will pay 2-3x the normal rates;

(4) now put all that aside and focus on getting healthy while keeping your fulltime job and never once worrying about the future.

Been there, done that, along with millions of other hard working americans. Gotten up and gone to work every day sick as a dog. Once you've been there you just want to strangle the clowns idiots and paid agents who advocate for the corrupt and criminal system that has been imposed on us.

[dysfunctional press]

24. back when i had private insurance, i was diagnosed with a disabling illness...

the insurance company dropped us.
what they did was start changing our due date around, and when our payment came in late one month, they cancelled us.

i now have coverage under my wife's job- but i'm also covered by medicare. it's getting expensive though, and i'll probably drop the coverage at my wife's work and go with medicare exclusively...if only it weren't for the incredibly shitty prescription drug coverage under medicare.

[kickysnana]

25. For profit medicine, politics and greed.

Over 200 Lyme patients were seeing an Infectious Disease doctor who also had an very good AID/HIV clinic in Abbot Northwestern Hospital. They were still experimenting to see how to treat this cousin of syphilis, a naturally occurring disease that somehow suddenly turned deadly around Plum Island of Lyme CT and was carried across the country by migrating birds.

In 1993 Sen Kennedy squared off with the Republicans in Congress over Lyme disease. Whether it was a health problem or not. (It is classified as one of potential 34 bio-weapons by the US government.) Early that same year an insurance actuary came to our Support Group meeting and gave us the news that the insurance industry was aware of the disease and because it cost more to treat a late stage/chronic Lyme patients complications than AIDs patients (pre AZT, high early mortality) they were going to treat it with the "mental health" model. That meant by withholding early treatment. That meant that the 20% of the people who would go chronic would be totally disabled (or dead) in 2 years and off private insurance and on government's insurance. It is all about the money. The government held a meeting of doctors in Dearborn Michigan that year and decided to help them by dumbing down the tests which became useless and making it more difficult to make a reportable diagnosis.

Back to us. Word came down from administration of Abbot Northwestern that the Dr needed to change the diagnosis of anyone who had had more than three weeks of antibiotics from Lyme Disease to Chronic Fatigue. Everyone got new charts. This is completely unethical. They then went after the doctor for his part ownership of an infusion company that many of us used for our IV antibiotics. It was not unusual but they were cracking down on the practice at the time. This was the Minnesota Medical board. We still don't know for what reason but instead of telling us what was going on he dismissed each of us poisoning our files as uncooperative or "difficult" patients. Most of us still believed in the God like status given to doctors and actually thought we had somehow done something wrong so we did not talk about it to one another immediately. Our initial positive tests were now unaccessible to us without a legal battle. The deal was that he could continue treating everyone but Lyme patients. Since there was no profit in us this was only bad for us not him. His record was restored. He continued his practice and other doctors dropped their Lyme patients too.

There are currently two practicing LLMDs in Minnesota, one south and one north. Only one takes insurance payments and has already had to stop IV treatments altogether because the insurance company will not pay for them. For some it is a death sentence, for most it is a lifetime of disability.

We may have been the model for the current state of Health Care in the US. We did fight and even win in the court but it did not change the practice and nobody actually got any more treatment or damages in Minnesota. Congress made HMOs the tyrants they now are.

[roguevalley]

26. my sister-in-law's beautiful brother, Dennis, died of asthma because

he had no money for medicine. he left a teenaged wife and baby. we didn't know or we would have paid for it. a beautiful kid, dead.

[compote_tom]

27. I have so many

I can't remember them all. I've had a personal bankruptcy largely due to medical bills. I've been constantly harassed by collection agencies for lab fees ect. Ironically I've had insurance through all of this. My wife carries insurance through her job it cost us about $700 a month, which is a chunk of change. My latest is a $700+ bill for a back X-ray, that's after the insurance paid whatever it paid and the so called "negotiated discount". When I went back to my doctor and complained about my middle back he told me "they only X-rayed your lower back". If we paid all the fees and copays our health probably cost us in excess of a thousand a month. Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn't be better without any insurance. My daughter in law found doctor's who see patients w/o insurance at much lower fees.

From 1990 thru 2003 I dealt a lot w/a company out of Canada. And I constantly ask people about their health care, not one person complained not one.

The one thing I would like to add (not sure this is the right forum) is that if the U.S. could develop a form of socialized medicine we would see a surge in new small businesses. I can't tell you how many people I know that are staying in their jobs because they or their spouse has some med condition that keeps them from striking out on their own. If the repugs are so pro-business why is this never brought up?

[trashcanistanista]

28. My coworker was having a baby

and carefully arranged all her prenatal care, time off, and kin care for time off with human resources several months prior to her due date. This is a hospital worker in one of the most profitable hospital chains in the country. She had complete coverage for herself, her husband and arranged it for her baby when it arrived. She woke up one night and had to be rushed to the hospital one month early to give birth. It was an emergency, she went right to delivery and the baby was born within a few hours.

Despite the fact that she was fully covered, the health insurance did not pay for any of it including the delivery, hospital stay, and preemie care for the baby (a few extra days in the hospital) because they claim she did not call the insurance company prior to her leaving her house and arriving at the hosptial for delivery (she didn't know she would deliver, just knew she had to get to the hospital, something was wrong). She had to go back to work immediately to pay the thousands of dollars worth of bills and could not take time off to rest or take care of a newborn. Luckily, she left the baby with family while she worked.

She tried to argue with them, but they insisted no phone call, no coverage. It was in small print on the contract.