Mother, 24, Uninsured, Deceased

Interviewed family, November 2010

(oil on linen, 40 ins. x 30 ins.)

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Jenny Fritts was a twenty-four-year-old married mother of one when she found herself pregnant for a second time.

Jenny was uninsured. Her husband had lost his construction job in New Jersey and they had moved to Illinois to look for work and be closer to family. Jenny tried to get care at clinics there, but the waiting list was four to five months long. She did not meet the residency requirement that would have made her eligible for Medicaid in the new state. Individual insurance was not an option. Jenny was denied coverage because her pregnancy was considered a preexisting condition. (This was prior to health care reform mandating coverage of pregnancy.)

When the couple moved to Indiana for a job opportunity, they applied for Medicaid in their new state of residence, but Jenny became very ill before the application could be processed. At seven and a half months pregnant, she was rushed to a for-profit hospital and diagnosed with double pneumonia, septic shock, respiratory failure, heart attack, brain bleed, and stroke.

Two weeks later doctors delivered her stillborn baby girl. Jenny was put on life support. Jenny Fritts was taken off life support after fifty days and died shortly thereafter. The cost of her care came to $1.5 million. In addition to her husband, she left behind a two-year-old daughter.