liam on the telly

Forgive the completely non-letterpress post, but we've got some exciting news! It's not all just letterpress around here...

I wanted to let you know that there will be a story about Liam and our continuing battle with our insurance company, Assurant Health, airing on Good Morning America next week. Right now it is scheduled to run on Wednesday, September 19th somewhere between 7:30-8:00am. Please pass this on to anyone who might be interested. If you're like us, you'll need to get your TV down from the attic, dust it off and figure out what channel ABC is! We spent an entire day with a crew from GMA about two weeks ago and we are really hopeful about the influence this story might have — not just for our family, but for many other Americans who are similarly falsely insured.

A little background ... Assurant Health, to whom we have dutifully paid premiums for 7 years now, has denied and continues to deny benefits for Liam's power chair. After exhausting the avenues of appeal within Assurant, taking our case to the Oregon Insurance Board (where after an initially good response, our case was mysteriously closed one day), hounding the high-ups of Assurant (many thanks to my mom) – it comes down to trying to effect a change with media attention. Despite the fact that Liam's Snappie is both a medical necessity and durable medical equipment, Assurant has refused to pay out benefits. Their reasoning: they just don't cover power wheelchairs and, also, they cannot make exceptions to just one policy holder as that would be 'unfair'.' One employee at Assurant went so far as to suggest that perhaps we should have read our policy more carefully before having a child. Need I say that there is no way that we could have possibly known Liam would need a power chair? I don’t think it’s necessary to elaborate on how very wrong that statement is, in every way.

I’d like to point out that Assurant’s so-called code of ethics, as posted for anyone to read on their website, include the following excerpts — all of which are negated by their real actions and decisions.

The companies that survive longest are the ones that work out what they uniquely can give to the world-not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul ... We offer products and services that touch people's lives, and our business depends on the trust and confidence we earn from our employees, customers and shareholders. In everything we do, we should remember that people count on us. At Assurant, we are proud of our long-standing commitment to operate according to our values-common sense, common decency, uncommon thinking and uncommon results. Everything we say and do is governed by the highest ethical standards and integrity.

One of Assurant’s CEOs. Raj Bal, sits on the board of directors for the Penfield Children’s Center in Milwaukie, Wisconsin. Their motto? "Never underestimate the capacity of the very young, and never, never let them down.” Well, let it be said — loud and clear and on national television ! — Liam has been let down.

I realize that we are very fortunate, in the face of all this, to have had the financial freedom to get Liam his Snappie over a year ago. We understand and appreciate that we are lucky in this regard. We also know that early childhood mobility is critical to the physical, social, emotional well-being of these young kids. I believe that Liam would not be the happy, outgoing, independent little boy he is today, at three and a half, if we had not gone to England when he was twenty months old. I believe that if we were still at the whim of Assurant, if we were still waiting and relying on them to come through for us, Liam would be a different child. Thank you to everyone who has made his Snappie a reality.

Please tune in next Wednesday and please let others know. We will let you know if the schedule changes. The bonus to watching it: seeing and hearing Liam sing his newest song to Assurant {totally unprompted and unplanned, I swear!} – bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do when they come for you? So take that, Assurant.