ajax18 wrote:This certainly isn't worse than the situation prior to Obamacare. The Church pays for the missionary during the mission from what I've seen. The lapse in coverage was the main problem.
I've read posts from returned missionaries who reported that sometimes the mission president was hesitant to authorize care, perhaps out of the sense of being a guardian of the Church's bottom line profits and costs or perhaps out of a distrust of modern medicine.
There was some fairly recent story on this very subject, but I can't remember any details.
The good thing is that if they get shipped back to the States in lieu of adequate care, at least they can now receive it here. Not sure how that works in the states the refused to expand Medicaid if the parents insurance did not pay for whatever reason.
After that the Church cut a deal of some sort with the hospitals where we were issued a medical card which they would honor for emergency room care.
It is good that some action was taken afterward. Wonder if any other need for emergency or any medical care had arisen in past missions. Being caught unaware of missionaries becoming ill or injured would certainly explain not being prepared for such an occurrence. Guess we live and learn.