A Texas couple, happily married for nine years—with two young children—are considering getting a divorce in order to afford their daughter’s health insurance needs. Their 6-year-old daughter Brighton suffers from Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome—a rare chromosomal disorder. WRCBTV reports that Jake and Maria Grey don’t make enough to qualify for Medicaid—$40,000—and don’t expect state assistance to come through either.
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Jake Grey, an Army veteran, said the family has private health insurance but they still spend about $15,000 every year out of pocket.
"It's drowning us to try to keep up with her medical expenses,” he said. "We've done everything we can do to try to keep her afloat, and we're going to reach a point where we can't do it and we won't have another option. We don't know what to do."
The fundamental issue with private insurance is that the business model is based on how much they do not have to pay for your medical bills. This issue is compounded by the lack of regulations on the healthcare industry (from medicine to insurance) regarding the costs and coverage of rarer treatments.
While Texas Governnor Greg Abbott worries more about undermining the ACA, taking private insurance money, and towing the Republican line that private insurance will magically become something it has never been, there are Democrats moving to make real insurance coverage available to everyone.
As Maria Grey told the news, their daughter Brighton is everything to them and they will do anything for her.
"She is a pure and beautiful soul,” Maria said. “We're lucky to have that and I wouldn't change that for anything."