Health Coverage Keeps Hospital Bills Down

I am a bankruptcy attorney in Florida. Every week I get several new clients looking for a way to erase thousands of dollars in debt and get a fresh start in life. Some of my clients get themselves into debt through their own poor choices, such as misuse of credit cards and gambling. Some people find themselves in trouble when their businesses fail or because they lost a job and couldn't find another one with the same income. The people I have the most compassion for, though, are the people who come to me with thousands of dollars in medical bills because their health insurance failed them or they didn't have insurance in the first place and found themselves in the hospital.

One woman came to me who had been fighting breast cancer. Her company went through some cutbacks, and she had lost her job and health insurance while she was going through treatments. Without those cancer treatments she would die, and she was responding well to them. Her health insurance company refused to cover her through COBRA, so she paid for her treatments and medications using credit cards. Her cancer was in remission when she came to me, but her credit card debt was over $150,000.

Then there was the man who had been in a car accident and was in a coma for many weeks. He had just stared a new job and was still on his 90-day probation period. His health insurance would start at the end of that time. Things were starting to look good, but he got into his car and everything changed-not even the slightest warning. He was in the hospital unconscious with broken bones. He had to stay in the hospital for a while after he awoke from his coma. Then he went to a nursing home for therapy. His house went into foreclosure and he lost his job. The accident was the other driver's fault, but he didn't have enough insurance coverage to cover all of the hospital bills. My client's car insurance didn't cover the bills either. Because he didn't have adequate insurance, he was now responsible for paying hospital and doctor bills of over $300,000.

Another client I had came to me with about $110,000 in debt in hospital bills. His child needed a kidney transplant. He was covered by insurance, which paid for many medical procedures for his child. Then because of mis-communication or misinformation from his company and the insurance company, he lost his coverage without his or the hospital's knowledge. The hospital kept treating the child as if the man had full coverage, and the child even got the kidney transplant. But when the bills were sent to the insurance company, much of the costs were denied. The man had been on full-time status at his job, but his work hours had been cut back to part-time hours, and his insurance coverage was cut proportionately. His family was covered for doctor and emergency room visits as well as hospital stays up to a certain dollar amount per year. When he reached that amount, he had to pay for everything out of pocket. What was really unfortunate was that the doctors wanted to get the transplant done before Christmas so the child could be home with his family for the holidays. If they had waited until after the new year, the expenses of the operation would have gone to the next year's coverage.

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.