Quadriplegic Losing 24 Hour Care after Multiple mergers of original Bank Employer-Wells Fargo Deny

[RamboLiberal]

TO THOSE who say that America needs a national health-care plan, I always answer, "We have one already. It's called luck."

Just ask Lance Lewis, who's had the good and the bad kind.

In April 1987, when Lewis, then 24, was hired by Corestates Bank as a financial analyst, he selected the most comprehensive health-care insurance from the array of plans that the now-defunct company offered its employees.

True, the plan took a bigger chomp from his paycheck than the other plans would have. But his salary wasn't great, so he wanted to know that his medical costs would be covered if disaster struck.

In November 1988, it struck in a big way. Lewis fell backward down a set of steps, broke his neck and became quadriplegic. His excellent insurance kicked in, covering every aspect of his hospitalization and rehab. Luckily, it also paid for the 24-hour nursing care he now required, so he was able to return to independent living in his own apartment.

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By last fall, Wells Fargo had absorbed Wachovia. Lewis filled out his forms, as usual, then spoke with the company's human-resources people to confirm the nursing deal.

"What nursing deal?" they basically asked him. "We don't know anything about that."

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/columnists/20100316_Ronnie_Polaneczky__Health_care_in_crisis__When_luck_runs_out.html

[brentspeak]

1. Unbelievably, there was at least one person responding in the article's comment section...

...asking "And I should pay for this because...?"

Apparently, the jackass who wrote that thinks the quadriplegic man in question should pull himself up by the bootstraps.

[RamboLiberal]

2. Hell one of the overpaid Wells Fargo Big Execs

Could pay for this out of his petty cash. You can be sure if it happened to one of them they'd be getting top notch care for the rest of their lives. Always frosts me to read about the perks they continue to receive from their companies after they retire - case in point that cheapass Jack Welch from GE - hell they even paid for his damn magazine subscriptions after he left.

[ljm2002]

5. No, the insurance should pay for it because...

...the quadriplegic man in question had enough foresight to purchase the best insurance he could get, and now is availing himself of it.

Geez some people are so stupid and mean-spirited it boggles the mind.

[berni_mccoy]

7. Current day version of "Get-a-Job"

[gratuitous]

3. Gee whiz, he's had 22 years to recover from quadriplegia

When's Mr. Lewis going to get off his paralyzed backside and stand on his own two feet?

"Greatest health care system inna world!"

[1776Forever]

4. Isn't that terrible? Goes to show how records are messed up with these mergers.

Step son just went through mix up on his student loan forbearance because of this very same merger! What a way to run a railroad! They should be fined for this some way for the cost it makes people like this man to recover from!

[Xithras]

6. I do have to agree with a few of the posters on one point.

It's rather mindblowing that he struck an arrangement with his previous employer 20 years ago and then didn't keep track of his paperwork. He doesn't have a single piece of documentation to prove his prior employers obligation? Ouch!

Hopefully he has a good lawyer, because he's definitely going to need it!

[dmr]

8. Give him a break, he relies on other people.

He doesn't have the ability to file away his own paperwork, let alone maintain it. Either someone threw it away, or misfiled it.

Even as careful as I am, I have misplaced and lost paperwork I needed later.

[SharonAnn]

9. Keep in mind, he wouldn't have been able to handle the paperwork. Someone else

would've had to do it. And perhaps they did, for a while, and things got thrown out. Can you imagine not being able to do anything? Not anything? Being totally dependent on someone else forever?