Health Insurance Crisis for Children

June 10, 2007 — -- Unhelpful customer service agents, voice mail purgatory, lost paperwork, government regulations, sheer frustration...

Everyone deals with customer service nightmares, but for some parents, the stakes are much higher — the health of their children.

Despite the fact that the U.S. is the richest nation on Earth, nine million American children do not have health insurance. Often, this means that a minor health problem goes without treatment until a child becomes very sick. Some of these children have died.

Many of the millions of uncovered children are eligible for government health insurance programs, but child advocates say some government officials are deliberately making it harder to enroll in these programs by creating a blizzard of bureaucracy and red tape — all, allegedly, to save money.

Richard Uhr says re-enrolling his grandson, Robert Uhr Jr. for public insurance was the fight of his life. The boy's father could not take up the battle as he is deaf and could not have made the necessary phone calls. Richard showed ABC News a letter which indicated his grandson would not be able to keep his health care coverage.

"It was as if it was in slow motion," Uhr said. "But when the clock is running and he's about to run out of insurance, it's not slow motion for me," Uhr said.

Tamika Scott's son, Devante Johnson, was dropped from public insurance because of a paperwork snafu while he was battling advanced kidney cancer.

"I went into the office, crying, letting them know, 'look, my son is dependent on this,'" she said. "And each time, 'I'm sorry.' But sorry can't help save my child."

Both of these families live in Texas, where one out of five children lacks health insurance — the highest rate in the nation. Perhaps not coincidentally, the state also has some of the biggest paperwork burdens. The red tape is so thick that there are now full-time experts to help families plow through the paperwork.

We sat with one health care "navigator," Rosie Martinez, as she helped one family apply for coverage for their young son.