Ex-boss cost teacher chance at new kidney

Ex-boss cost teacher chance at new kidney

By Paul Rolly
Tribune Columnist
Article Last Updated: 08/22/2008 01:28:59 AM MDT

Susan Ciraulo has battled some difficult challenges in recent years, but none quite as hard as finding out her employer had canceled the company's health insurance plan without telling her or her colleagues.
The single mother of an 18-year-old daughter and a 15-year-old son developed a kidney condition that led to renal failure more than two years ago. She needs routine and expensive doses of pills and shots just to keep her kidney functioning. Her body cannot build red blood cells on its own. She needs shots for that.
Her daughter has juvenile diabetes. Her son has Asperger's syndrome and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
And now, she says, after finding out her health insurance was canceled because of nonpayment by her employer, she must pay nearly $1,000 a month for a transitional, individual health insurance plan.
But by losing her group-plan insurance, she also has been taken off Intermountain Health Care's transplant list for a new kidney.
Ciraulo was a special education teacher at Woodland Hills, the private school for junior high and high-school age students with autism, Asperger's and other disabilities. She is one of 32 Woodland Hills employees who have filed complaints with the Utah Labor Commission for up to two months' unpaid wages.
Besides not being paid, the employees learned their IHC health plan was canceled because their employer, Utah Southvalley Community School at Woodland Hills President Bob Jones, did not make the payments for several months. But their employee contributions to the plan were still being taken out of their paychecks, while they were still getting paychecks.
Most teachers have left Woodland Hills. Jones told me that Utah Southvalley and Woodland Hills have separated, so he stopped paying the expenses of Woodland Hills, but is working out a settlement.
Ciraulo had to come up with $2,385, which she borrowed, just to get on the conversion plan and pays $953 per month to maintain it. She has a job with Jordan School District teaching special needs students who are in trouble with the law, but cannot qualify for the district's insurance plan until December.
Then, she hopes, she can get back on IHC's transplant list.

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