They adopted a child to make sure she wouldn't end up in the system.
Now, a Gainesville couple says their little girl is being punished.
Though Al and Karen Hollander are willing to pay for the girl's insurance, they said they have been told no insurance will cover her.
The Hollanders have cared for 6-year-old Teri since she was just a few months old.
The Hollanders are in their late-60s and the parents of five biological children and 10 grandchildren.
They took Teri in when they learned her biological mother, who is not a blood relative, could not care for Teri. Karen Hollander told Channel 2’s Diana Davis, “Rather than have the state step in and put her into the system, we took guardianship of her. It’s not something I planned on doing at this stage of the game, starting all over, but life happens,” she said.
When the Hollanders legally adopted Teri three months ago, they were hit with a bombshell.
They said they learned that no insurance company in the United States will cover her.
The insurance companies she wrote to and called blamed it on new federal health care legislation.
The Hollanders said both the insurance commissioner’s office and their state representative told them once insurance companies were required to insure kids with pre-existing conditions, they stopped writing new policies for healthy kids like Teri. It infuriates the Hollanders. “I think that is an absolute crime that someone can do this in America,” said Karen Hollander.
The Hollanders have Medicare -- the federal insurance program for Americans over the age of 65. It doesn't cover kids. Though the Hollanders aren’t rich, they're not poor either.
Teri doesn't qualify for the state's Peach Care program or Medicaid.
“I knew that once we adopted her she would no longer be eligible for Medicaid, but it never ever occurred to me she wouldn't be eligible for any insurance,” Karen Hollander said.
In an e-mail, the state insurance commissioner's office said it was unaware of any insurance company in Georgia writing policies for kids and said state law doesn't require it.
The Hollanders told Davis they can handle Teri's day-to-day doctor bills, but Al Hollander said if Teri gets a serious illness, they would be wiped out. “Of course if she got a real illness, it would put us in bankruptcy. It doesn’t make a lot of sense after you have been working all your life and saving for retirement” said Hollander.
The Hollanders said they’ve been told Teri will be eligible for insurance in 2014 if and when the new federal health insurance legislation takes effect.
Frakking insurance scam-artists
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