Brum Mum hit with £75k hospital bill after premature birth in USA

[DGRossetti]

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/bartley-green-mum-hit-75k-19484536

A mum has racked up a £75,000 medical bill after prematurely giving birth in America - two days before she was due to fly home to Birmingham.

Amy Collins, from Birmingham, needed an emergency caesarean to deliver tiny William Collins in Texas on December 11.

He was born at 24 weeks and weighed just 1lb 9ozs and needed specialist care in hospital where he remains.

Amy, 30, had been due to fly back to Birmingham on December 13.

But with no insurance she has been left with a medical bill of £75,000 for the delivery and care of her son - with the charges set to rocket further.

(contd)

With an American husband there can be no way the pair didn’t know about the risks of not having insurance in the U.S. I am sorry for them under these awful circumstances but they have been very stupid. I wouldn’t contribute to their fund as a stranger.

So she is married to an American?? It should not have been a surprise that she needed bloody good medical insurance then!

She’s only entitled to use the NHS if she’s ‘normally resident’ in the UK. It sounds like she might not be. So she’s probably been a grasping idiot on more than one count. No sympathy.

She should have had travel insurance.
I agree though, I think the reason she didn’t have travel insurance was because as the article says “she’s been living off and on in America”
So she wasn’t on a holiday there. And she’s married to an American for past year. Why wasn’t she on his employers health insurance as his wife?
It looks like she had planned to do a bit of health tourism and go to U.K. and give birth on NHS, even though expats are by law supposed to pay their costs if they come to UK and use the NHS.
So, hate to say it but she knew she was taking a huge risk by living in the US with no health insurance and thinking she could just fly back and defraud the NHS. I guess she will need to go back to work and pay off her medical bill like most people in US do.
If she can’t, she can file for bankruptcy over half of bankruptcies in US are due to medical bills. That might be her best option if she has no or a low paid job and no assets.

@BiggerBoat1

She should have had insurance.

The very best insurance covers pregnancy but not the unborn baby. They are counted as a separate person and can’t be insured. I discovered this when reading the fine print. You think it covers you because it says it covers pregnancy and birth but from moment baby is born it won’t cover baby.

Feel so bad for her. 24 weeks is very early.

It's baby Dax all over again. Did anyone ever find out to the hundreds of thousands they didn't need that they said they were going to use to set up a charity?

Travel insurance rarely covers the baby once it's been born. Policies tend to be for the named people only. I travelled when pregnant once and we only found one insurer who would insure me for complications dueing pregnancy and also the baby if she'd been born prematurely.

Feel so bad for her

She is married to an American and lives there. She should have had medical insurance.

Why didn’t her husband put the baby on his insurance?

It was "Insure and Go" with their family policy in case anyone is looking for insurance now!

I don't think that they are married, from what the article said they are together and she lives there on and off. The grandmother is hoping to fly out there and bring back her granddaughter but I wonder if that is even possible now?

The very best insurance covers pregnancy but not the unborn baby. They are counted as a separate person and can’t be insured. I discovered this when reading the fine print. You think it covers you because it says it covers pregnancy and birth but from moment baby is born it won’t cover baby.

Er, no that’s not true. I have a sister in the US who had twin boys and their care was covered by their private health insurance as well as my sisters care. The way you’re saying it is like every parent in the US has to pay all the antenatal costs of their babies because they can’t be insured. That’s not true at all.

Sadly she gambled on being on the right side of the Atlantic when the time came.

And it is unfortunate that she lost the spin on health tourism roulette but them’s the breaks.

All for the sake of a few bob on the insurance. Daftness.

Sounds like she’s living in America and they decided to cheap out on the extra insurance premium because she knew she could skip over to the UK and have the baby for free here. Stupid even in normal times but with the added risk of travel being cancelled due to covid they were playing with fire. They should have had insurance regardless of their plans. That’s what insurance is for- medical costs you don’t plan for.

Oh! Thought you meant regular US health insurance, not travel insurance. You are right about travel insurance.

@xmasfairybuns

I don't think that they are married, from what the article said they are together and she lives there on and off. The grandmother is hoping to fly out there and bring back her granddaughter but I wonder if that is even possible now?

The article says Amy has been married to Texan engineer Greg Collins for the last year

Do people not realise that nearly half of Americans have inadequate insurance and over 12% have no health insurance at all?

www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/aug/looming-crisis-health-coverage-2020-biennial

Are they all idiots too or can they just not afford it / can’t get it?

If they are not married the chances are she was there illegally and could not go on his medical insurance. There have been no ESTAs issued since March, it’s been almost impossible for British people to travel to the US unless they are residents since then. I doubt the grandmother can fly out either.

Many Americans have no health insurance. However, it would be rather unusual for someone in her husband's profession not to have health insurance.

She was either going to scam the NHS having the baby here, or will try and crowd fund to raise the medical costs here.
Reporting this to the local UK press is just the first step to raise awareness in her "plight".
People are far too trusting and quick to donate online to these tales of hardship.

I take that back, if they are married.

Silly woman. Took the risk and now is paying the consequences.

It's baby Dax all over again

I'm afraid so - even down to the GoFundMe page (and no, I don't think it was ever disclosed what happened to those contributions)

I hope the little lad will be okay, but while this mum may or may not have understood the cost of US medicine, I'd have thought her DH would

@SinkGirl

Do people not realise that nearly half of Americans have inadequate insurance and over 12% have no health insurance at all?

www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2020/aug/looming-crisis-health-coverage-2020-biennial

Are they all idiots too or can they just not afford it / can’t get it?

Most cannot afford it. But US has a program called Medicaid and WIC, plus there are state programs that specifically provide free healthcare to poor pregnant women and women with infants. So many Americans who truly can’t afford it (it’s means tested) would at least be covered for pregnancy, childbirth and infant care.

However, there is a section of Americans, especially young healthy Americans who can afford insurance but decide not to get it because it will cost more than what they use. They think, I have no health problems, I don’t get sick. I’m happy to self pay $300 if I need to see a doctor and get antibiotics once a year so why should I pay $300/mo for basic health insurance? They don’t realise they are one accident away from very large medical bills, they gamble. For them $300/mo is affordable but it’s still a good chunk of their earnings and they are healthy so don’t see a need for it.

She’s been living in and off in America for a while, she has her daughter with her. She should have made sure they were all insured correctly (either holiday insurance or medical insurance appropriate to their visas).