Argument in favor of a public choice for health care #1

In May 2008 I quit my job of 8 years to start my own business as an independent consultant. 6 months later I was looking for a job and not because business was bad. Business was in fact incredible and I was even thinking about hiring an employee to help me out with all the work I had to do. The number one reason why I had to end my business was health care. I had other reasons of course but health care was the dealbreaker.

Naively, I applied for a family plan with Kaiser Permanente in order to continue with the same coverage I had through my employer and keep the same pediatrician for my daughter. I was very surprised when I was approved and my healthy 5 year old daughter was denied coverage. The reason she was denied was "unfavorable hospitalization or medical attention" and the letter did not clarify what specifically this meant and the insurance company representative said they did not know what it meant either. I appealed the denial and spoke with my daughter's pediatrician. I asked her, "Could it be autism she is being denied for?" She has never been hospitalized and autism is a developmental issue so the doctor and I both decided that her letter should not address autism when agreeing with my appeal to Kaiser. Smart cookie I am decided that I just better pay a little extra postage for delivery confirmation when sending in the appeal. Wouldn't you know it....when I followed up 5 weeks later (because the appeal information said do not call before then) they had never received my appeal. Or course when I said, "Oh that's funny because according to my delivery confirmation you received it 3 days after I sent it." They were very very prompt in making sure I was able to fax my appeal to the right person immediately after that. Only a few days later I received a letter stating my appeal was denied because of "autism". I decided soon after that it was time to find a job instead so my daughter would have coverage.

I could have been a successful small business owner and was hoping to employ someone. Thanks to health insurers denying private coverage to my healthy daughter who just happens to have autism I could no longer keep the business going.