Woman who lost son fights for bankruptcy changes
Published: October 20, 2009
WASHINGTON—A Rhode Island woman appeals to Congress to ease bankruptcy rules for people devastated by medical debt.
Kerry Burns, of Coventry, told senators in Washington Tuesday about the pain of losing a child and going broke from her health care bills.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, chaired the Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on his bill to carve out an exception for people whose medical bills were the main cause of their financial distress
Burns is a Rhode Island social worker.
She said she and her husband lost everything, even though insurance covered the majority of nearly $5 million in treatments for her son Finnegan, who was hospitalized in intensive care for 13 months before he died last March. Finnegan Burns, who lived to be only 4 1/2, had cystic fibrosis.
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Reader Reactions
That was indeed very tragic! In cases like this, there is a definitive need to create extra funds, or to cut spending, and one of the ways people save is to cut insurance cost spending. Granted, it’s a gamble to cut insurance cost spending, but frankly flood insurance in Arizona isn’t a great idea. Tornado insurance in the Pacific Northwest might be a waste as well. (Although there are extremely rare, but documented, instances of tornados in the Evergreen State.) It is a gamble, though, because everyone does need insurance coverage of some sort. Whether it’s insuring your house, car, or your health, to cut insurance cost and/or coverage is a risky thing to do, whether it’s done with debt relief in mind or not.
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