Families of children with disabilities fall through health care gaps
October 25th, 2008From the Christian Science Monitor:
As Americans grapple with a troubled health care system, the presidential candidates propose plans to help families who have fallen through the gaps, including parents of children with disabilities. Costs for health care continue to rise while more than 45 million Americans have no health insurance, and another 25 million have coverage too limited to cover their medical bills.
Margaret Demko of Albany, Ohio, says her family has been without insurance since her daughter was born with Down syndrome four years ago.
She says she didn’t realize when she quit her job to care for her child that she would be unable to purchase health insurance. Insurance companies in Ohio are not required to cover children with disabilities that are defined as preexisting conditions.
The family says they earn too much to qualify for Ohio’s SCHIP plan and not enough to qualify for another state-sponsored program. Demko says she has received quotes for family health plans that start at $3,000 a month, which is almost as much as they earn.
For too long, she believes, insurance companies have been allowed to put profit before people, selling lower-priced plans to the healthy and at the same time charging exorbitant rates for people who have healthcare needs or just denying them coverage.
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October 25th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Our family experienced a similar absence of options in Utah while self-employed. Private health insurers would not underwrite a policy covering my son with Down syndrome, and my income level disqualified me from state programs. Ultimately we decided to leave the state due to the difficulty in accessing health care.