[Jason]

Matt Aldridge would have trouble contemplating life without the Shriners Hospital for Children in Greenville, South Carolina.

Aldridge, 28, and his 21-month-old daughter, Maddie, were born without shinbones. Both had their legs amputated at Shriners near their first birthdays. Like all care given to youths admitted to any of North America's 22 Shriners Hospitals, their surgeries and follow-up treatments were free to them.
Aldridge estimates the care he received through his teens in the Shriners' system -- which admits children irrespective of their parents' income -- cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, approaching the lifetime limits of some insurance policies.
Now, he and his wife, Renee, take Maddie to Greenville -- about a 90-minute drive from their South Carolina home -- at least every six weeks, partly for treatment of a hip condition.
Without Shriners' cover-all-costs policy, the family would be in serious trouble, said Aldridge, who works at a Wal-Mart cell phone connection center. Renee is a stay-at-home mother, and the family doesn't have private medical insurance.
"If it weren't for Shriners, we'd be financially devastated," Matt Aldridge said. "With just the care Maddie has received already, we probably would be bankrupt."



Possible closure of six free Shriners hospitals scares parents - CNN.com