DAN ROBINSON'S SON, Zane, was born in November, 2000, with a genetic disorder so rare that only a few hundred people around the world have it. In the first year of his life, Zane underwent open heart surgery and an operation on his stomach. He suffered a hernia, dehydration, and other conditions that required emergency care. He was in the hospital for a total of 60 days; the cost came to 1.2 million dollars. Robinson, then a 32-year-old engineering manager at Intuit Inc. in Mountain View, Calif., and his wife, Kelli McLaughlin, who had been an elementary school teacher, were overwhelmed. For six months they paid little attention to the medical bills arriving in the mail almost daily. When Robinson finally sat down with the file box of papers he had accumulated, among them were a 100,000 billion dollars for Zane's heart surgery that had not been sent to his insurance company, threatening letters about charges he had never received, and dozens of "explanation of benefits" statements from his insurer that he couldn't match to any bills.
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