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Steve and Marian Coddington are having problems with their insurance company:Each morning, Steve has to gamble – rushing the children to school, barreling through the grocery store for the day’s supplies and bolting home, praying all the while that nothing has happened to Marian in his absence. He is trying to keep his family together and happy and to meet everyone's needs, but he's drowning.
He has hired an attorney to fight CIGNA’s refusal to pay for additional care, but it’s an agonizingly slow, arduous process of seeking medical documentation, waiting for hospitals, doctors and CIGNA to reply to requests for records.
But, amazingly, in all of this, Marian IS making progress. Her vocabulary is growing and her interaction with Steve and the children gives hope to them all. By using a lift he bought with his own money, Steve was able to get Marian on a treadmill to begin moving and exercising her legs. He is trying to enroll her in a University of South Florida speech therapy program. But he’s running out of money and time and options.
We all know, and experts who have seen Marian, evaluated her and treated her agree, that Marian can make a tremendous recovery. That she can be a participant in her family and a mother to her children. The single impediment to her recovery has been the insurance that she and Steve paid for, for years, and then had the nerve to rely upon when it was time for them to use the coverage they had purchased.
For the record: CIGNA reported a second-quarter profit of $435 million, a 60 percent increase.
Also, outgoing CIGNA Chairman and CEO H. Edward Hanway took home a compensation package worth nearly $23 million in 2007 "boosted by a big bonus awarded during a year of lackluster stock performance."
Their motto is "A Business of Caring." Emphasis on the business.
Post-script: I'm obviously biased here - Steve Coddington is a former co-worker and friend of some of my friends. I don't know him well. But I don't need to to know that something is terribly wrong with this system.
4 comments:
Thank you for posting this. I am the author of the blog you linked in this post and I so deeply appreciate you giving it space here. Keep watching Steve's blog for updates as I will be posting developments as I am able. As of this writing, we have raised just over $3,000.00, almost all of which has come in the form of small donations. Again, THANK YOU!
Hey, glad I could share the blog and Steve's story. I hope others are doing the same.
And acctually, thank you for letting people know about Steve and Marian and their story. It's one that we need to tell to as many people as possible.
For anyone who may be following Steve's story through this blog, I wanted to update you and tell you that your efforts are working. We have raised over $5,000.00 online for Steve and his family in less than a week. We have a very long way to go, but every bit of progress we have made is because people are making their contributions and taking the time to share Steve's story with others. We have heard from people all over the country and the world who are helping and rooting for this family. You can follow us on the blog because we are posting updates as things develop (and there should be some exciting developments over the next few days, we hope). Here is the link to the blog: http://savestevesfamily.blogspot.com/ Thank you so very much and PLEASE keep telling people about Steve and Marian!
UPDATE: Steve's story has gone national!
Because of people like you who have been willing to share Steve's struggle with others, we have raised nearly $20,000.00 for Marian Coddington's desperately needed therapy. We are deeply grateful for all of the support you have already given Steve and Marian.
Our greatest hurdle has been reaching as many people as we can to help raise the money Steve needs to get Marian the intensive therapies she requires to recover as completely as possible. Marian CAN recover. She is not a vegetable. She is there, trapped in a body she cannot control. But she is in there.
Today, a short video was released by Brave New Films that features Steve and Marian's story. We appeal to you, once again, to help us. Please, go to the blog (http://savestevesfamily.blogspot.com), watch the video and pass it along to anyone you think might be willing to help. We are already so thankful for the hundreds of people who have gotten us this far. We just haven't gone far enough yet. But we will. And you can count on it.
PLEASE, tell your Facebook friends about Steve, twitter it out to all your tweeps, share it with your coworkers, but keep telling his story.
Thank you.
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