|
COPYRIGHT 2001 The Miami Herald
Byline: James McNair
May 27--Dressing, bathing and looking after 125 developmentally disabled residents of The Hope Center in Miami never represented a financial gravy train for the 60 care-givers at the nonprofit home. The jobs pay a little more than $8 an hour, and single-coverage health care takes a $19 bite out of employees' monthly salary.
So imagine the distress when many of the workers learned last year that they weren't insured after all. The health plan they had chosen, Well America, went out of business last August, and their unpaid medical bills have surpassed $188,000. One employee who was hospitalized is wondering how she'll pay the $55,732 tab.
"This lady is no longer working with us, but her salary was probably around $8 and change on an hourly basis, about $340 a week, and the ability to pay a $55,000 bill is next to impossible," said Sherwin Rosenstein, CEO of The Hope Center.
It's a tragedy multiplied at 35 companies, governments, schools and utilities that thought their employees' health was insured by Well America. Today, their delinquent medical bills stand at $3.8 million, according to the state. Well America's top two officers, Geoffrey Cole and Vivian Lehman, face prison terms of up to five years if convicted on state felony charges of selling insurance without a license.
Well America also...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
