Article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...dren-home-raids.html

Law enforcement made multiple attempts to peacefully resolve the issue, then went through the process of getting a court order, (then tried to peacefully resolve the issue a couple more times,) but eventually forced their way in to take a sick child into state custody. Why? Because the parents refused to take the child to an ER after a physician in a clinic told them to, claiming the child’s condition was fine after returning from the clinic, so the physician called the state’s department of child safety, and the parents won’t let state agent verify the child’s condition. Now all this family’s three children are in state custody.

I do not like having law enforcement force their way into private homes, much less taking children away, without very damn good reason. So I am glad that law enforcement followed due process and obtained court order.

I cannot yet support letting the state keep custody of the three children because I see no reporting on whether the “sick child” was truly sick. The report mentions only that the child was later found to have “respiratory illness” with no detail, so it is hard to tell whether the patents’ judgment was “bad enough” to lose custody of their children, but they do have that anti-vax thing going against them — the 2 year-old child was unvaccinated.

The story I saw (I haven't read yours) said the kid had a high fever, the doctor told them to take the kid to the hospital, the parents agreed, and then decided not to do so because the father said he didn't want a three grand hospital bill. The doctor called to check whether the kid had gone to the hospital, found he hadn't, and that's when this cascade started.

Kudos to the doctor, and it sounds to me as if the police followed all the right steps.

The story doesn't mention whether the family had health insurance. If the father was complaining about not wanting to spend "3K" on ER treatment, that suggests they are uninsured but not poor enough for medicaid or indigent care. Alternatively, they may have consciously chosen to go without insurance.

This is such a broad social question. Rights and obligations are in real tension. Lots of people choose to go bare of insurance coverage or of vaccine coverage, and then expect (and get) the state to pour untold thousands or millions into their care. Think of the tetanus kid in Oregon. In this case, the state seizes the children because the father won't pay the ER bill, probably because he chose not to have health insurance to save money.

Reading heavily between the lines, I think these folks may have been leaning toward the libertarian/survivalist/off the grid side of the scale. The thing that kept coming up with me was what I would do if my kid had a fever of 105 degrees, over several days, and my doctor told me explicitly to go to the ER for further checkups. I would do it. There's nothing that would stop me from getting my kid medical care, even if I were uninsured.

This family seems fishy. Other stories indicate that the family home wasn't great, including a shotgun propped against the wall (unlocked, not stored) in a house with 3 kids. This is unverified, so read into it what you will.

Parents have rights. But so do kids.

Yes, and the fact that the floor was littered with stuff, so much that the deputies had to step on it.

And they went to a fishy-sounding medical place.

Again, kudos to the doctor at that fishy-sounding place for recommending a hospital, and particularly for checking whether they went. That's diligence above the norm.

Good grief.

If you went into my house when I had three kids and one was sick, there would have been stuff all over the floor too.

In the story I read, the parents took the kid to a doctor, and on the way home they bought a thermometer. It appeared the fever had broken, and the kid was playing with his siblings. But in come the cops, like they're raiding a meth lab. If the doctor was so very concerned, the hospital or social welfare department could have done a *house call* to see if the kid was OK. Nope, they use force instead.

Sorry, I don't approve. We have to let parents make medical decisions for their kids. It's one thing if the parents decide to withhold medical treatment because of some bizarre belief system. That is not this case. They sought medical treatment, *there was no definitive diagnosis of meningitis or anything else*, and the parents made the reasonable decision to watch and wait.

Look. If we are going to have a medical system that sticks people with massive bills if they have the misfortune to go to an emergency room, we need to understand that this is beyond the means of many families and they will govern themselves accordingly.

Now we have kids who have been traumatized at having been the subject of a raid and snatched from their parents -- including the two siblings for whom there was no question of neglect.

This is government overreach of the worst kind.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
The story doesn't mention whether the family had health insurance. If the father was complaining about not wanting to spend "3K" on ER treatment, that suggests they are uninsured but not poor enough for medicaid or indigent care. Alternatively, they may have consciously chosen to go without insurance.

This is such a broad social question. Rights and obligations are in real tension. Lots of people choose to go bare of insurance coverage or of vaccine coverage, and then expect (and get) the state to pour untold thousands or millions into their care. Think of the tetanus kid in Oregon. In this case, the state seizes the children because the father won't pay the ER bill, probably because he chose not to have health insurance to save money.

What's that now? The family may have "consciously chosen to go without health insurance?"

Do you guys know what it costs to insure a family of five if you don't get coverage through your job?

Do you know what kind of co-pays and deductibles you have to pay if one of your kids needs to go to an emergency room, even if you do have insurance?

Do you know how many hours you have to work to pay for the cost of one emergency room visit if you have a low-paying job?

I'm not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, but some of us may have forgotten what it is like to be poor . . . .

"Poor" people can get Medicaid coverage. Truly "poor" people use the ER as health care and get no bill. I do know someone who works in this system. Many Medicaid-eligible people don't fill out the forms to get covered and essentially stick the "system" (or the physicians who treat them) with costs that can't be reimbursed. And do it repeatedly since the office cannot send them away. Thank you for your moralizing though.

Yes, poverty is a drag, but that's not the whole story all the time. Sometimes, just sometimes, personal responsibility plays a role.

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:

This is government overreach of the worst kind.

The story I read suggested that they tried to make a wellness call to check on the child, and the parents refused them entry. And that the cops then had to negotiate with them for two hours.

But hey, if the doctor had serious enough concerns about the child that he recommended they go straight to the emergency room, and was concerned enough that he followed up to find out that they hadn't done as he recommended ... government overreach!

Heaven forbid that we EVER interfere with parental prerogatives, even if a doctor (you may be as knowledgeable about medical issues as a doctor, but not every parent is) thinks that the issue requires emergency treatment.

Are you sure you aren't a Trump supporter?

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
"Poor" people can get Medicaid coverage. Truly "poor" people use the ER as health care and get no bill. I do know someone who works in this system. Many Medicaid-eligible people don't fill out the forms to get covered and essentially stick the "system" (or the physicians who treat them) with costs that can't be reimbursed. And do it repeatedly since the office cannot send them away. Thank you for your moralizing though.

Yes, poverty is a drag, but that's not the whole story all the time. Sometimes, just sometimes, personal responsibility plays a role.

Some years ago, the law firm I worked for took on pro bono cases (i.e. representing people for no free). One type of case we got frequently was when a person or family ran up a bill at a hospital and couldn't pay it. These people most definitely got bills, and sometimes they got debt collectors too. I guess all those folks lacked "personal responsibility"?

Look. The safety net in this country is in tatters. People may not be eligible for income-based medical care/subsidies. They may not know such aid is available. And they may be afraid to apply if they are undocumented. You don't have to google very hard to find people who received ruinous bills from simple emergency room visits. If anything, a family that knows enough to go to urgent care or a clinic instead of going to the emergency room as a first resort *is* demonstrating personal responsibility.

I think it is quite a leap to say that if someone is worried about the cost of an emergency room bill that they are lacking "personal responsibility."

It just bugs me in this day and age, where income inequality is such a problem, for insured, wealthy people like us to moralize about how poor people (or "truly" poor people) aren't doing things right. I doubt any of us here could make it on the incomes of the working poor nowadays. A little empathy might be in order . . .

Hey, we're all just speculating, remember ...

Some of us were empathizing more with the child, others with the father who decided he was too poor to pay (what might very well have been a zero) bill.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
Hey, we're all just speculating, remember ...

Some of us were empathizing more with the child, others with the father who decided he was too poor to pay (what might very well have been a zero) bill.

Indeed. The father might have gotten stuck with a big bill. The kid could have died. I think one of those situations deserves a little more sympathy than the other, but apparently not everyone agrees.

D.) Not enough information to answer the question.

I try not to comment in threads like this because I don't have kids.

Sigh.