Very sad story and this could happen to any of us...health related bills passed in Texas still falling short as they are everywhere we look today in the US...BD
GALVESTON — Jennifer Holliday is too wealthy to qualify for indigent medical care in Angelina County, but poor enough to qualify for limited care at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Before becoming one of the uninsured, Holliday earned $40,000 per year as a paramedic for a Lufkin ambulance service.
So Holliday, her arm mangled by a shotgun blast from a man who attacked her, must make the three-hour, 175-mile drive from her Lufkin home to Galveston for physical therapy twice a week. Then a quirk in the law left her without any insurance at all. Her qualification for $900 monthly Social Security disability payments, her only income, made her ineligible for federal medical assistance for two years.
The single mother of a 7-year-old son still has shotgun pellets in her arm and needs surgery to restore the use of it. She lost her job and her health insurance after the 2005 attack, and now lives on $900 a month. After losing her insurance, a life-threatening infection that ate a hole through her bone sent Holliday to the Lufkin Memorial Hospital emergency room last year.
The hospital expenses forced Holliday into bankruptcy. She lost her car and home, and now lives in a trailer. A collection agency calls incessantly demanding to know when she will pay her hospital bill, she says.
The financial pressure is piled on top of the emotional scars from her attack. "Some days I will completely break down," Holliday said. "There is no doubt I'll need counseling the rest of my life."
The Legislature this year passed a number of health-related bills influenced by Code Red, but none significantly changed the way the poor and uninsured receive health care, said state Rep. Jim Jackson.
Attack victim suffers through health-care limbo (w/video) | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
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