By Caresse Jackman, InvestigateTV
January 27, 2026
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After Susannah Reed-McCullough’s husband died in 2018, she and their younger daughters continued to obtain medical health insurance via his job as a firefighter in Maryland.
Then, in 2024, she bought an sudden medical invoice: $377 for a checkup for one among her kids the earlier fall. Reed-McCullough mentioned she known as the physician’s billing division and discovered the insurance coverage firm had dropped the youngsters’s protection.
The drop turned out to be a mistake. However Reed-McCullough mentioned she was compelled to behave because the go-between for her late husband’s human sources division and their insurer — all whereas anxious about her daughters’ being uninsured.
On this installment of InvestigateTV and KFF Well being Information’ “Pricey Care” collection, Caresse Jackman, InvestigateTV’s nationwide shopper investigative reporter, explores how administrative errors can go away sufferers on the hook for medical payments they shouldn’t owe, typically with few choices to right an issue they didn’t create.
Jackman interviewed Elisabeth Rosenthal, senior contributing editor at KFF Well being Information, who mentioned unintended protection drops are “a standard drawback” in want of consideration from state regulators.
“Folks make errors, techniques make errors, and they need to be held accountable for them, not the affected person,” Rosenthal mentioned.
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