This story is precisely why health care reform was so necessary:
Houston Tracy is just 10 days old, but the little boy has already lived through trying times.
“He was born with what’s called transposition of the great arteries.” his father, Doug Tracy said. “It’s heart wrenching; I hated it.”
The congenital heart defect causes the two major vessels that carry blood away from the heart to become switched.
It’s a condition rarely detected before birth.
“My whole pregnancy was simple, it was easy, no complications, doctor visits were great,” Houston’s mother, Kim Tracy said. “Perfect sonograms, great little pictures and then, he wasn’t perfect.”
The baby was rushed to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth where he had life-saving surgery.
“He’s doing really good,” his mother said with a smile, “he’s a little tough guy.”
While baby Houston is fighting for recovery, his parents found themselves in another battle: Fighting the insurance company, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas.
The Tracy’s are both small business owners and do not carry health insurance for themselves. They do carry insurance on their two other children and tried to get insurance for Houston, but they found out Wednesday his coverage was denied.
“They kept saying it’s preexisting, it’s preexisting, but I don’t know how it can be preexisting on a baby that was just born.” his father said. “If it’s mandated that everyone have health insurance, than how can one be denied?”
Denying health insurance coverage for a 10 day-old baby on the grounds of a pre-existing condition….certainly a new low for insurance companies.
::crickets::
I’m no fan of insurance companies, and I sue them all the time. But I blame the parents on this one. Had they bought insurance for themselves their offspring would be covered at the time of birth. They have no right to complain once when the insurer won’t take the health insurance risk once it is known that the risk is certainly going to be very expensive.
Conceptionally, this is no different than buying property insurance in the middle of a flood or car insurance after an accident. I wouldn’t take that risk If I were an insurer would you?