Most new legislation is meant to correct a wrong but it also can create unforeseen problems and health insurance reform is no exception.  Some employers say their costs are going to make covering employes too expensive.  Some retired citizens say their supplemental Medicare policies are no longer valid.  All these problems must be addressed with other reform legislation.  But for now, the basic needs–insurance portability between jobs, unfair exclusions for pre-existing conditions and other injustices–have been met.

     Any doubts about the need for health insurance reform were removed with 4-day-old Houston Tracy’s surgery of March 19, 2010.  Born with a heart defect, he required surgery to survive.  His parents, Doug and Kim Tracy, had health coverage for their two other children but not for themselves.  Doug Tracy had contacted the carrier Blue Cross Blue Shield about Houston’s impending birth and was told he had 30 days to include the child on the policy.  Then Blue Cross Blue Shield refused to pay for the surgery.  The new law, which takes effect in September, 2010, would require the carrier to pay.  Because of intense public scrutiny and the efforts of Cook’s Childrens Hospital in Fort Worth and two Democratic state legislators, Blue Cross Blue Shield relented and agreed to pay for the surgery.