I got a call from a man who had seven thousand ($7,000.00) dollars in medical bills he was responsible for because his insurance company declined to cover his wife’s operation as a pre-existing condition. He had to re-finance his home to pay off the medical bills.
He had just upgraded his health insurance policy to one that provides more coverage. He did not change insurance companies, he just switched policies within the company. On the last day of coverage of his old policy, an ultrasound was performed on his wife and the doctors discovered a cyst on his wife’s ovary that had to be removed. Seven days into his new policy, the cyst was removed. Thankfully, it was not cancer.
The insurance company denied the claim as a pre-existing condition. Their reasoning for denying this claim was because the diagnostic test occurred on the last day of the old policy. Consequently, the insurance company claims this was now a pre-existing condition. How absurd! How much longer do we allow the insurance industry to continue to do this to us?
When I am in the legislature, I will introduce legislation to make denials of pre-existing conditions like this improper! Why should we cause people to go into debt to just pay off medical bills like this when they supposedly had health insurance? They relied upon this coverage and instead, they were just left to fend for themselves. This is outrageous and everyone should demand that this practice become a thing of the past!
Roger A. Decanio
