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‘These medical bills are going to pull me down’

Woman hurried to have surgery only to learn she was on hook for the bills because of her deductible.

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By Josh Sweigart, Staff Writer 1:00 AM Sunday, September 20, 2009

HAMILTON — Recession. Health care. These aren’t just the stuff of headlines for Joan Frost. They’re a daily struggle.

When Frost, 56, was laid off in June from Garden Manor nursing home in Middletown — she worked in the kitchen for $8.75 an hour — she hurried to schedule needed vascular surgery to fix painful varicose veins in her legs.

“I had to use my insurance in a hurry because it ran out,” she said.

What she didn’t realize until she got the first $566 bill was that she had not met her annual $2,500 deductible, so her insurance company won’t foot the bill.

“I thought everything was taken care of with my insurance after I had paid all that time (for premiums),” she said. “When I got the bill, they didn’t pay anything.”

And now she has no job, and is struggling just to pay her mortgage.

She bought a roughly $30,000 house in Middletown using the first-time home buyers credit. It was cheaper than renting, and she was forced to move out of her rental when her landlord lost the house to foreclosure.

The medical bills kept coming. Her doctor reduced his bill to $312, the hospital wrote their bill off as a loss, but the anesthesiologist insists on the full $566.

“Who can come up with $500? I couldn’t do that,” she said. “I’ve made one house payment, and I got the next one coming up that I can’t make. I’ve got to do something, I can’t lose my car and my house and everything. I’ve got excellent credit.”

“These medical bills are going to pull me down,” she said. “If I could get a job ... I would be OK before I got too far in the hole.”

“I’ve asked everyone in town, who’s got a job here? Who can I go to? Because I’m a good worker,” she said. “I got up for food stamps this morning and cried my eyes out in front of that lady and said, ‘I’m trying.’”

She works hard, she said, and is always on the move. Her arthritis makes it painful for her to sit still too long.

“I’m just at wit’s end here, I’m pacing the floor trying to figure out what to do next.”

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