In an awful story coming out of South Carolina, a 17-year-old boy was dropped from his health insurance after testing HIV-positive. Well, that insurance company has just been ordered to pay up big! 10 million dollars to be exact!
The Supreme Court of South Carolina ordered Fortis Insurance to pay up after claiming the student already knew about is status and lied! How incredibly corrupt, I think they should have to pay even more!
– Andy
An HIV+ 17 year old? Christ.
Hey, he could have been born with it, you never know, but I doubt it…
Wow, the way you summarized it made it sound like some big controversial discrimination case. Then I read the story, and, nope, nurse wrote the date wrong.
He could have been born with it, but I’m pretty sure if he were, they would have found out before he was 17. More likely he either wasn’t properly educated or thought he was too young and invincible to get it. Still a real shame.
Children being born with HIV is actually not that uncommon. That’s why recently it has become standard practice for expectant mothers to get HIV tests. As for him finding out he was born with it before the age of seventeen, people have gone up to 20 years and not any symptoms. I used to work at a clinic and I meet a mother of 3 (kids were 3,7,and 12) that found out she was positive and so we tested her kids and all of them were positive as well and had no symptoms. So,I know its possible.
OK. Reality check time – again. If someone lies to get coverage, then, duh, that is grounds to refuse or cancel coverage. If true, the insurance company did absolutely nothing wrong and that butthead judge is legislating from the bench. That said, the nurse is responsible for writing the wrong date. The NURSE, not the insurance company. The insurance company did the right thing in taking away coverage because it believed that the guy lied. Upon appeal, the investigation should have shown that the nurse was at fault and coverage should have been reinstated – if the guy really didn’t know and, therefore, did not knowingly make a false statement. So where does the 10 million come in? Was he denied health care or payment for some procedure or medication anywhere close to this amount? Probably not. This kind of thing happens all the time with “straights” who have other health issues. Why aren’t you all standing up for them? The judge still is wrong to make the insurance company pay that ridiculous amount. This is why insurance (including malpractice) costs so much and our health care system needs help.
i just came in here because i KNEW i would find one of those comments that say “omg, THIS is why our health care system needs help (as opposed to greedy corporations and health care facilities).” mistreated people getting some payback for their suffering will be the downfall of america! sad.