Coburn Kids

We found out early this week that Daniel’s previous employer, who our COBRA is through, is switching their insurance plan to a $7000 deductible Feb 1st, no-copay’s. We were never sent any papers on it, we actually found out by chance. It’s basically the cheapest plan you can have and still tell your employees that “you provide health insurance”.  With Daniel unemployed we certainly can’t afford this.

So we’ve been on the phone all day with every government and state health plan out there.  CHIP, since we have COBRA no matter how poor it is, won’t cover my children.  If we drop COBRA then it’s still a 90 day waiting period and Daniel and I are out of luck. Medicaid, we make too much.  Utah HIPP, we can’t get coverage because there’s a 6 month waiting period until any of Caden’s pre-existing conditions (which is basically everything) are covered.

So I’ve started canceling Caden’s doctor’s appointments.  His Cleft Team appointment coming up, that took an entire 18 months to get, we are going to even though this is going to cost us hundreds of dollars. His eye appointment coming up first of Feb., canceled.  His immunizations on Feb. 12th, canceled.  I’ve heard that the health department can do these for free, it should be noted though that a week ago in the Salt Lake Tribune our legislators are looking at cutting the Utah Health Department.

So I sit back and ponder about the other families going through this.  There are many. Such as the two-year-old Colorado girl who was told by her insurance company that she had reached her lifetime maximum and was being dropped.  Medicaid would not cover them because they made too much.  The special medicaid they were under because of their child’s extreme medical problems was also dropping her because she had to go to Nebraska for a transplant.  The transplant is only done in 4 hospitals in this country and CO wasn’t one of them. So these parents, who have the unimaginable task of being there for their medically fragile child now have to fight with the government, fight with the state of CO to just have them cover the life-saving medical care their child needs. Only because of the media coverage they were able to get did the state of CO step up and reinstate her health insurance.  What of those other families that don’t get their story on the news?

Sure we can write letters to our congressmen, our legislators, but it doesn’t become personal for them. Most people with health coverage that have never had to endure or fight with their insurance companies can’t understand the situation. I used to be one of them, I can’t fault them. I always thought that since I paid my taxes, since I had health insurance I would never be affected by this. It’s just a passing thought when you see stories like this in the newspaper. As it should be really, because there are only so many causes, only so many situations that you can handle at one moment.

So what’s a family to do? I’m actually not bitter or angry about any of this, rather disappointed… a little frustrated.  It’s not myself or my family that I feel sorry for in all this, it’s the other families that I know who are going through this.  Hard working, middle-class people who are trying to navigate the waters of insurance bureaucracy alone, who feel failed by the system and at the same time have the intense burden of also worrying about the health of their loved one.  Their child, their husband, their friend.