How One Employer Stuck a New Mom With a $898,984 Bill for Her Premature Baby

[Voltaire2]

This is the crap system some of our candidates are defending.

Dignity Health said its employee, an ER nurse, failed to meet the deadline to add her premature newborn to its health plan, so she was responsible for the medical bills. It rejected her appeals for a year until ProPublica called.

Lauren Bard opened the hospital bill this month and her body went numb. In bold block letters it said, “AMOUNT DUE: $898,984.57.”

Last fall, Bard’s daughter, Sadie, had arrived about three months prematurely; and as a nurse herself, Bard knew the costs for Sadie’s care would be high. But she’d assumed the bulk would be covered by the organization that owned the hospital where she worked: Dignity Health, whose marketing motto is “Hello humankindness.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-one-employer-stuck-a-new-mom-with-a-bill-for-her-premature-baby

[BeyondGeography]

1. Insurance company won't cover much-needed wheelchair, California double amputee says

https://www.google.com/amp/s/kdvr.com/2019/11/02/insurance-company-wont-cover-much-needed-wheelchair-double-amputee-says/amp/

We could do nothing but threads like this all day, every day.

[TexasTowelie]

2. From the first line of your OP

I can only gather that you think that it is okay to bash Democrats.

[Fix The Stupid]

5. Wtf? That is what you take from this story?

Not the real life example of how your healthcare system is fucked?

No empathy for this woman and her baby?

Cold, cold stuff. But not surprised...

[TexasTowelie]

20. The comment says,

"This is the crap system some of our candidates are defending."

Yes, I do empathize with the woman and her child, but that comment is definitely bashing Democrats. It can't be interpreted in any other way.

[Merlot]

29. The truth hurts sometimes.

[MrsCoffee]

47. So you think our candidates want this woman to go through this ordeal?

That they would say, hey, way to go, let's make sure we can keep screwing people like this?

Or do you think that each and every one of them has a plan to better our healthcare system so that no one ever has to go through this again? Whether you agree or not with their chosen direction, I can guarantee it's in the direction of bettering the system and not making this woman's experience the standard of care.

You are trying to paint Democrats as the party that is behind this bullshit bankrupting system and that is not even in the same realm as the truth. But it does hurt. It definitely hurts to see this kind of misinformation spread about our candidates.

[Merlot]

48. Some candidates ARE supporting the for profit insurance companies.

Not sure how pointing that out is "trying to paint Democrats as the party behind" works.

[MrsCoffee]

49. Nah, they are supporting incremental change.

Your talking points are stale.

[bluecollar2]

56. Just read that sentence to myself

About 10 times and upon reflection I can't agree that it can be interpreted as "bashing Democrats."

Why can't it be just a statement of fact?

[TexasTowelie]

60. I don't see how anyone can read that sentence

and not believe that it is bashing Democrats. Democrats are responsible for the enactment of Medicare and children's health insurance programs throughout the country. The ACA also expanded medical coverage to millions of American systems that were previously uninsured. Calling those programs crappy deserves to be ridiculed.

[bluecollar2]

62. I agree with everything you say except for your

First sentence.

But we disagree on the interpretation...so be it.

In the end all that matters is that we vote for the Democrat.

[TexasTowelie]

63. That's cool.

We have a diverse membership here and people are going to disagree with each other. It would be rather bland here if it just became an affirmation party and we lived in a bubble.

And yes, what truly matters is that the vote for the Democrat to get the Orange Terrorizer out of office. My brother who is a Trump supporter admitted to me today that he is fed up with Trump's pompous ego-building bullshit and if we nominated Biden, then he might vote for him. That's actually a major step as far as I'm concerned.

[Hortensis]

32. WTF that Voltaire claims ANY Democrat supports this!

Universal healthcare is the position of ALL our liberal Democratic candidates AND the position of the Democratic Party.

[TexasTowelie]

21. My comment would apply whether or not Beto had remained in the race.

The comment bashes Democrats and can't be interpreted in any other way. The fact is that you are choosing to ignore the comment made in the OP and that you would rather personally attack me instead.

[blm]

31. Not cool.

[aikoaiko]

42. We can openly criticize Democrats on DU who support bad policies and systems.

It happens a lot here.

[TexasTowelie]

50. It;s impossible to respond to your reply without breaking the TOS rules. nt

[aikoaiko]

52. Sometimes a hide is worth it to speak one's mind, TT.

[TexasTowelie]

54. Yes, but you shouldn't encourage me or try to bait me to do it.

This isn't one of those occasions where it is worthwhile to do since my response would only appear briefly.

[dalton99a]

3. Kick

[greyl]

4. Feel free to contact Dignity Health.

https://www.dignityhealth.org/contact-us

Example:

Subject: Community Health
Contact Information Name: Sadie Bard

Email Address: [e-mail]

Your company is despicable.

[TidalWave46]

7. I wonder if she "liked her plan" before she forgot to enroll her child?

"This is the crap system some of our candidates are defending."

That statement is crap. Not one of our candidates is fighting for the status quo. Not one.

[Voltaire2]

8. Sorry, but every candidate supporting retaining the private insurance system

is supporting a system that does this sort of nonsense.

[TidalWave46]

11. That comment makes little to no sense.

It might feel good to say it. doesn't mean it's accurate.

[Voltaire2]

12. what makes no sense?

Please explain how the supporters of retaining the private insurance system are not, whether they admit it or not, supporting the gatekeeping that system does that results in the horror stories such as this one documented by the pro publica article.

[TidalWave46]

15. Because they are looking to move the ball forward.

They are looking to give this person, who is probably one of the ones who just loved her work insurance, and option to join a single payer plan. That is what numerous candidates are doing. It isn't fighting for insurance companies. It's just the opposite.

Getting your medical bills paid after personal irresponsibility isn't the horror you are making it out to be.

We are heading to a single payer system. How we get there is being debated. It's a beautiful thing. I personally think those demanding it now and nothing else matters are plants. They know it won't happen now. They are acting like children.

I support both Warren and Biden. That includes their plans for healthcare. No reason not to. It moves us in the right direction. Most of our current candidates want some form of government option that would allow people to shift over to it. Shortsighted people can't see that is where many will end up as people change jobs, look at it as an option, or other reasons.

When the group you are damning is damn near everyone, you might want to look why you are standing alone. That's why I like Warren. Unlike Sanders and the mentality I just stated, she is a coalition builder.

[Voltaire2]

16. an "option to join a single payer plan" is not what is being proposed

by the proponents of retaining the current system. You are confusing the "public option" with "single payer", they are different.

Biden and Buttigieg are both running on retaining the current system, but offering a public option that competes with the private system. Perhaps over time a good public option that is superior to and more affordable than private insurance will become "single payer", but meanwhile the current system would remain in place, with its horrors.

"Getting your medical bills paid after personal irresponsibility isn't the horror you are making it out to be."

Seriously? Did you even read the article?

Bard’s saga began, traumatically, when she gave birth to Sadie at just 26 weeks on Sept. 21, 2018, at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center in Southern California. Weighing less than a pound and a half, tiny enough to fit into Bard’s cupped hands, Sadie was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit. Three days after her birth, Bard called Anthem Blue Cross, which administers her health plan, to start coverage. Anthem and UC Irvine’s billing department assured her that Sadie was covered, Bard said.

But Dignity’s plan, like many, requires employees to enroll newborns within 31 days through its website, or they won’t be covered — something Bard said she didn’t know at the time.

She thought she had done what was needed, and was told that her daughter was covered. This sort of loophole read the fine print nonsense is typical of how private insurers work.

[TidalWave46]

18. It's the right direction an needs to happen.

And your subject line is flat out wrong. Not the first time in this brief conversation you have gone in that direction.

Yes, I read the article. Horrible all the way around. Worked out in the end even though she didn't properly prepare. Truly has little to do with the issue itself. Her getting her bills covered isn't why we need single payer. We need it because healthcare is a right. You simply confuse arguments. I promise there will be massive problems with single payer. We will work through them and never give up.

I'm moving on. You are looking for a conversation. You are looking to lecture while employing less than honest tactics.

Good day.

[Demsrule86]

61. A public option will be a subsidized buy in to either Medicare or Medicaid...so you are wrong...and

it will cover those who's states refused to expand Medicaid and folks with shitty private insurance too...the idea is that anyone can join this plan. This is different than the ACA. And it has a chance to pass ...M4A will never never pass even if we get the Senate and the presidency.

[Hortensis]

34. That's as honest as saying our Democratic candidates support

murder or dark money in politics because we believe in the right to free speech.

The Democratic Party is committed to universal healthcare for all Americans. All our liberal Democratic candidates support universal healthcare. You know that but you post this.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Lord have mercy!

Thanks for the thread Voltaire.

[Voltaire2]

10. We should post the horror stories on a regular basis.

The current system, even with the substantial ACA reforms, is a horror show for its 'clients' over and over again. It doesn't need more patchwork reform, it needs to be abolished.

[dalton99a]

13. It is fucking barbaric.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

14. I worked with a guy who had his policy rescinded during his wife's pregnancy.

His crime: failing to disclose a visit to a dermatologist for a birthmark on his older kid’s arm. The birthmark was nothing but it was the loophole the insurance company needed to not pay for the pregnancy.

[emmaverybo]

30. I could post horror stories continually about single-payer from England, a country M4All

proponents often cite, and we all know VA hospital horror stories (closest we have here to a fed run system) but then THOSE stories would be called RW talking points or fake news. And no, a lot of private insurance does not operate this way for millions.

Abolish and wait some years for M4All? EVEN IF M4All were to become law, it will be sometime
before start up. In the meantime, do M4All supporters suggest we do nothing about the healthcare
system we have? Let Obamacare die of attrition? Don’t work to regulate private insurance to provide remedies to its more egregious problems? Give up, protecting Medicare and Medicaid?

When we do have the incredibly huge bureaucracy of M4All, it will not all be smooth sailing. There will be many stories, many complaints, frustrations, even deaths. Meanwhile, abolish is just not an answer for the years we will wait to accomplish perfection and we will need progress.

Dem bashing and fear-mongering is not it.

[Voltaire2]

40. Oddly even the most reactionary right wing

British governments won’t touch their NHS.

Also it’s not single payer it’s the entire health care system that is socialized.

[emmaverybo]

59. Increasingly, the Brit system is becoming privatized. Government has touched it with mismanagement

and some very unpopular changes. I am making the point that a healthcare system many M4All
supporters point to as a model of socialized care is not without deep flaws and its own “horror stories.”

[Bradshaw3]

57. go ahead and post them if you can

I can post at least 10 times more from our system in answer. I could also post polls about the healthcare system in those countries and whether they would prefer a mainly privatized, extremely profitable to big healthcare one we have. The don't. It is not bashing Dems to say soem favor keeping the current system mostly intact. You obviosuly do. And if you want to knwo real fear, talk to one of the people like the person above who has had their life ruined by an insurance company.

[Autumn]

39. Here's one. Out of state. Kidney stone too big to pass. Over $19 thousand, and they were

"kind" enough to give me Medicare rates. Humana. Out of network. Still paying that off.

[Act_of_Reparation]

17. BUT I LURVES MY PR1VATE 1NSURINCE

[Hortensis]

37. I don't luvs willful ignorance and strongly doubt anyone luvs

the unnecessary anxiety and dispirit it inevitably leads to.

This is brief, part of our 2016 Democratic Party platform's statement on universal healthcare. It's cautious in not promising everything immediately, but it states our commitment. And you must have heard our liberal Democratic candidates declare their commitment to making it happen in 2021 in much stronger terms at debates and elsewhere.

There's just no reason to swallow the lies that any of them are protecting the giant problem that must be fixed. WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS, AND YOU'RE PART OF A GOOD THING.

ENSURE THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF ALL AMERICANS

Democrats have been fighting to secure universal health care for the American people for generations, and we are proud to be the party that passed Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Being stronger together means finally achieving that goal. We are going to fight to make sure every American has access to quality, affordable health care. We will tackle the problems that remain in our health care system, including cracking down on runaway prescription drug prices and addressing mental health with the same seriousness that we treat physical health. We will fight Republican efforts to roll back the clock on women’s health and reproductive rights, and stand up for Planned Parenthood. And we will tackle the epidemics of substance abuse and gun violence, which each claim tens of thousands of lives every year.

Securing Universal Health Care

Democrats believe that health care is a right, not a privilege, and our health care system should put people before profits. Thanks to the hard work of President Obama and Democrats in Congress, we took a critically important step toward the goal of universal health care by passing the Affordable Care Act, which has covered 20 million more Americans and ensured millions more will never be denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition. Democrats will never falter in our generations-long fight to guarantee health care as a fundamental right for every American. As part of that guarantee, Americans should be able to access public coverage through a public option, and those over 55 should be able to opt in to Medicare. ...

BTW, those who lie to you betray you. Reciprocating their contempt is the only smart response.

[Act_of_Reparation]

43. Was I questioning our commitment to universal health care?

Or was I ridiculing a ridiculous argument against one of many proposed means to that end?

Now, I might be wrong here (I have it on good authority I'm a fucking idiot), but it seems to me I can both 1) accept that all Democrats are officially in favor of universal healthcare, and 2) be contemptuous of a stupid-borderline-dishonest argument against the universal healthcare program I prefer.

I mean, you realize that the Democratic Party is us, right? That the candidates do not lead us? That they actually work for us? That they are our employees? That it is completely right and proper, and in no way disloyal, to disagree with them? If it was, we wouldn't be bothering with this primary shit. Or at least, that's how it seems to me. But I could be wrong. Cause I'm so fucking stupid.

[Hortensis]

44. :) Sorry, but I did accidentally generate a strong, affirmative

statement, so not all bad. I do apologize for mistaking your sarcasm for support of an appallingly dishonest message.

Fwiw, I saw nothing borderline dishonest about this characterization of Democratic candidates that could only subvert confidence in their integrity in those vulnerable.

And, of course, spark outrage against it among the rest of us.

[Act_of_Reparation]

45. Sorry if I seem cranky, but I really don't understand this rationale.

It's just so frustrating to see every internal disagreement we have effectively shut down with calls for "unity" and dire warnings about enthusiasm and confidence.

Is anyone still here after 2016 going to abstain, or vote third party, or vote for Trump? Really?

I mean, I get why we should watch what we say in public, but I don't think your workaday voter is hanging out on DU, reading our commentary so they can make an informed decision on how to vote in the general. This is our place, if there's anywhere we should be able to go to sort our shit out, it should be here. We're going to disagree from time to time (well, probably all the time, cuz we're liberals and that's how we roll). It's fine. It's natural. Disagreement doesn't necessarily lead to disunity or fracture, but people feeling their opinions aren't heard or valued sure as shit will.

So, for what it's worth, while I will likely vehemently argue for the policies I personally prefer, I am still, without a second thought, voting for whoever the fuck runs as a Democrat, no matter how disparate our views. if voting a Democrat in the 2020 general means casting a vote for Marianne Williamson, then fuck it, I'll stick a chunk of quartz up my ass and vote for Marianne Williamson.

[Hortensis]

46. :) Me too. But for crankiness, eye on Voltaire2.

[bluecollar2]

58. Is quartz what's needed to make a diamond?

I thought it was carbon/coal?

[BeyondGeography]

19. Good to see this OP alive and kicking

[Voltaire2]

22. yeah

bit of a hiccup there.

[BeyondGeography]

23. I wrote one of these myself last week

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287329811

For-profit health insurance is the road to hell.

[TexasTowelie]

24. Really?

I agree with your OP, but saying that for-profit health insurance is the road to hell over-exaggerates the situation and weakens the argument being made. When I see something so ridiculous being written, it causes me to discredit anything else that you write.

Is Satan on the roadside directing traffic?

[BeyondGeography]

25. It's a terrible idea to place for-profit insurance at the center of any health care system

I’m not casting aspersions on the rank-and-file individuals who are caught up in it, but when you have basically 1/5 of the largest economy in the world mobilized around profiting off of our individual needs for health care in a free-enterprise economy with minimal cost controls (made possible by for-profit insurance) we are collectively on the road to hell. They just want to see what our pain threshold is and every year it gets worse.

[TexasTowelie]

26. If we were speaking face to face and you made that statement

then I would either roll my eyes or I might choose to discuss it with you, but the only way that I can convey my message is through the pixels on the computer screen.

When I see a comment that is as ridiculous, then I'm definitely going to ridicule it. You might as well have stated "any person or company that makes a profit is going to hell" because it is just as ridiculous.

You are your own worst enemy when you make statements that are easily ridiculed and as I said earlier, it discredits the point that you are attempting to make when you exaggerate. Besides, I noticed that your statement was altered from "for-profit health insurance companies" to "we are collectively" on the road to hell. As a Christian, I'm not on the road to hell (or if I am it is for other reasons), so don't include me on your road trip. Thanks.

[BeyondGeography]

35. Here's the road we're on

https://www.axios.com/2019-employer-coverage-workers-premiums-deductibles-ea2cbdf3-91bd-4b4d-9611-71fd72b1140c.html

Call it what you will.

[dalton99a]

38. +1

[Autumn]

53. Wow. That's a highway to Trumps heaven or at least his wet dream. Good read, thanks.

The intrigue: Workers aren't just paying more in monthly premiums. Employers continue to raise the average deductibles, which means more workers are paying for more of their care out of pocket later into the year.


Go deeper: Millions of workers lose or change health plans every year

By the way, it really is a road to hell for people.

[BannonsLiver]

28. It is a terrible idea

Now what we have to do is sell that to the American people. I think it can be done.

[Hortensis]

33. Universal healthcare is the position of ALL our liberal Dem candidates.

AND universal healthcare is the position of the Democratic Party.

We're already most of the way to that goal and are committed to achieving it under the next Democratic-controlled administration.

How dare you smear us this way, Voltaire? There are other forums for this.

[betsuni]

36. +1

[Voltaire2]

41. Biden's plan leaves out 10 million Americans.

I guess universal is whatever we want it to be.

[TexasTowelie]

55. So the options that are left to those 10 million Americans

are to pay a premium to a private insurance company or to pay higher taxes? That's a dilemma.

[DBoon]

51. Well at lest it wasn't an evil socialist government health plan

nt

[Humanist_Activist]

64. On a more serious note, how would this bill be impossible under a public option plan...

when the person in question didn't opt for the public option coverage?

Are there going to be controls or limits as to what hospitals can charge, actual price controls built into the system, on top of having a public option of some sort inserted in?