I am desperate for some help and am not sure who to call for help.  My husbands employer made a paperwork error that caused our insurance to be cancelled on Aug 31st.  We were given no warning and found out a week after it had been cancelled when I went to get a prescription filled.   We have been told that they (BCN) will not reinstate it.  An appeal has been filed by my husband's employers insurance agent to have it reinstated but they do not seem hopeful that it will be.   We only have 30 days from the time of cancellation to get into another policy or with my son's pre-existing condition we would have trouble getting coverage for him for 6 months.  They are trying to push us into getting insurance through my employer. Problem is the coverage is considerably less than what we had and my son would not be able to see any of his existing doctors here locally and in CIncinnati.   They are telling us that in 3 months, if the appeal does not work,  they can re-write another contract or policy and get us the same insurance again (Is this true?).   Meanwhile they want us to take the insurance through my employer.  I don't know if I can believe this and am afraid we will get stuck with my employer's insurance.  Who can I call to get some answers?  Please, can anyone give me some advice?   I have called lawyers but they say that is not their specialty and that medical insurance issues are a very specialized area of law.  Can someone give me a name or direct me to someone that can advise?  Thanks for any help.

 

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If he can direct me to something legal, please tell me. Do I trust his employer or this insurance agancy - NO!
I'd contact the Insurance commissioners office for your state and ask them how to proceed, if you can settle this without a lawyer it will be better for all.
I don't have any legal info and Paul only does business & real estate in Cal, which is completely different than what you guys need. When you say you don't trust your husbands employer, do you suspect they aren't being completely truthful with this issue?

Karen Barnett said:
If he can direct me to something legal, please tell me. Do I trust his employer or this insurance agancy - NO!
What happened with the insurance Commissioner? Family Voices?
I don't know where you are in Michigan, but here are the law schools. You are looking for students/faculty studying disability or Civil Rights Saw. If I can find out who has a program I will let you know. Your County Bar Association may also have someone they can recommend.

Ginny

* Ave Maria School of Law (Ann Arbor, MI)
o Admissions
o Library
* Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI)
o Admissions
o Library
* Thomas M. Cooley Law School (Lansing, MI)
o Admissions
o Library
* University of Michigan Law School (Ann Arbor, MI)
o Admissions
o Library
* University of Detroit Mercy School of Law (Detroit, MI)
o Admissions
o Library
* Wayne State University Law School (Detroit, MI)
o Admissions
o Library
Try this guy:

David A. Santacroce
Clinical Professor of Law


361 Legal Research
734.763.4319
Fax 734.764.4702
E-mail dasanta@umich.edu

David A. Santacroce, a clinical professor in the Michigan Clinical Law Program, teaches in the General Civil Clinic.

His primary interest is impact litigation focusing on civil rights, particularly health care issues
.


Professor Santacroce is the founder and president of the Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education, a non-profit corporation housed at the Law School. CSALE is dedicated to the empirical study of applied legal education and the promotion of related scholarship. Professor Santacroce is also the President and founding member of Equal Justice America, a nonprofit corporation that provides grants to law students who volunteer to work with organizations providing civil legal services to the indigent. He is a past chair of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Clinical Legal Education and former board member of the Clinical Legal Education Association. He is also former senior staff attorney for the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice in Detroit. While there, he managed a programmatic worker’s rights campaign under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act in trial and appellate courts throughout the United States. Professor Santacroce received an LL.M. from Columbia University School of Law, where he was named a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, a J.D., cum laude, from Pace University School of Law, where he was managing editor of the Pace Law Review, and a B.A. from Connecticut College.


Ginny
This guy looks like another possibility if he is still at the school. Not sure how long he would be there as a visiting professor.

Stephen Mikochik, Visiting Professor of Law (Classes in the Spring Semester)
Prof. Mikochik is visiting Ave Maria from Temple Law School in Philadelphia, where he has taught Constitutional Law and related courses for nearly thirty years. Before coming to Temple, he was an attorney with the Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked to enforce the civil rights of people with disabilities. Prof. Mikochik received his B.A. from New York University, his M.A. in Religious Studies from St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, his M.A. in Philosophy from Temple University, his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law, and his LL.M. from Harvard Law School
239-687-5300 should get you to him. Have a succinct statement of the problem with dates.

Ginny
This lawyer is in charge of gaining real life legal experience for senior students at the law school. He may have some suggestions.

Ginny

Peter J. Hammer
Professor of Law
Office: Room 3225
Telephone: (313) 577-0830
E-mail: phammer@wayne.edu

Homepage URL
http://www.law.wayne.edu/faculty/Fac_web/Hammer/

Degrees and Certifications

B.A., B.S., Gonzaga University
J.D., Ph.D. (economics), University of Michigan

Courses Taught

Contracts
Health Law
Health Policy: The Firm, The Market & The Law
International Organizations and Public Health

Biography

A Professor at Wayne State University Law School since 2003, Professor Hammer specializes in Health Law & Policy, examining the industry from an institutional economic perspective. He is a recipient of an Investigator Award in Health Policy Research from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and served as lead editor for Uncertain Times: Kenneth Arrow and the Changing Economics of Health Care, a book published by Duke University Press (2003). Before joining Wayne State, Professor Hammer spent several years on the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School. He is presently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in the Department of Health Management and Policy.

Prior to entering academia, he was an associate at the Los Angeles office of O’Melveny & Myers, where he maintained an active practice in antitrust, health law, and the presentation of expert economic testimony. Professor Hammer received his undergraduate education at Gonzaga University and completed his professional and graduate education at the University of Michigan, where he received a J.D. and a Ph.D. (economics). Before entering private practice, he clerked for the Honorable Alfred T. Goodwin, former Chief Judge of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

At Wayne State, Professor Hammer has helped redesign the School’s growing Health Law curriculum. In addition to Contracts in the first curriculum, he teaches courses in Health Care Quality, Licensing & Liability; Health Care Organization & Finance; International Organizations & Public Health, and Health Policy: The Firm, The Market & The Law.

Professor Hammer maintains an active interest in international health policy and questions of law & development, with a particular focus on Cambodia. In 2007, he was Visiting Professor at the Center for Khmer Studies, teaching in their Capacity Building in Cambodian Higher Education program focusing on Cambodia at the Margins: Minority Groups and Borderlines. Professor Hammer is also the recipient of two research grants from the Center for Khmer studies, (1) Interfacing Local & Global: Cambodian Institutions and International Aid Initiatives and (2) The Role of Social Institutions in Cambodian Economic Development.

Professor Hammer was a founding Board Member and past-President of Legal Aid of Cambodia, a non-profit, non-governmental organization providing free legal services to Cambodia’s poor. At the University of Michigan Law School, he founded and directed the school’s Program for Cambodian Law & Development. He is presently a Board Member of the Life & Hope Association, and organization in Siem Reap, Cambodia, run by Buddhists monks to address the needs of orphans and vulnerable children.

His writings on Cambodia include: The Elusive Face of Cambodian Justice, in Awaiting Justice: Essays on Accountability in Cambodia (Beth Van Shaack, ed.) (Mellon Press) (2005) and Competition Law in Cambodia, in Competition Law and Policy in ASEAN Countries, (G.Sivalingam, ed.) (Consumer International) (2004).

Books
Thanks so much everyone for all the information!
Karen - they cancelled the insurance for everyone at your husband's company, or just yours?

If you're not getting any activity from the good suggestions others have already listed, I would call all the Detroit news stations - like Fox2 Problem Solvers, etc - and see if they'd like in on this story.

Good luck.
My husband was the only one getting health insurance. He is employed full time there (they use a lot of part time & sub contractors). It was a 1 person group policy.

Keith Van Houten said:
Karen - they cancelled the insurance for everyone at your husband's company, or just yours?

If you're not getting any activity from the good suggestions others have already listed, I would call all the Detroit news stations - like Fox2 Problem Solvers, etc - and see if they'd like in on this story.

Good luck.
It's awfully suspicious that your policy got cancelled right before a provision in the health care reform bill that would prevent a cancellation for this reason was about to take effect...

Does this sound familiar?

"Under the new law, health care insurers will no longer be able to do the following:

Cancel a policy without proving fraud: Currently, health plans can and will cancel coverage retroactively if you failed to accurately disclose required information on the insurance application. Under the new law, the insurance carrier must prove that the information was left off the application by reason of fraud before canceling the policy."

link

This new rule took effect on Sept 23, 2010 - there's some details around policy dates and grandfathered status that would impact whether it would apply to you, though.


Could be the employer also - they may be realizing how expensive it is to insure someone with a catastrophic, pre-existing condition. I'm sure they'd prefer that your employer pay it.
You hit on every reason that I am so suspicious about what I was told happened (a survey & waiver getting turned in 5 days late).

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