(AUDIO): Former mid-Missouri hospital employee says money was taken out of check, but company didn’t pay premiums

The former Noble and St. Mary’s Hospital in mid-Missouri’s Mexico (2022 photo courtesy of “Mexico Ledger” managing editor Mathew Pilger)

A former employee of the now-closed Mexico hospital says she has thousands of dollars in medical bills that she didn’t expect.

Marissa Hagedorn has a two-year-son with spina bifida.


“They were taking our premiums out and taking money out of our paychecks. So it looked like we had our self-funded plans. If you went on the websites and that of our health insurance, it said active. So we all thought that our health insurance was there,” Hagedorn tells 939 the Eagle.

State Rep. Kent Haden (R-Mexico) listens as then-State Rep. Ron Hicks (R-Defiance) testifies before a Missouri House committee in Jefferson City on January 27, 2022 (file photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)

State Rep. Kent Haden (R-Mexico) tells 939 the Eagle that money was taken out of hospital employees’ checks for health care, but the company didn’t pay insurance premiums. Ms. Hagedorn lives in Audrain County, north of Columbia

“I mean, hurt and betrayed. It’s something that with my son’s diagnosis at birth and before birth, he has to have health insurance. He will always have medical bills,” Hagedorn says.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has told 939 the Eagle’s “Wake Up Mid-Missouri” that his office is conducting an investigation into what’s happened at the now-closed Mexico and Fulton hospitals. Representative Haden, whose district includes Audrain and Callaway counties in the Missouri House, says the Legislature should consider holding hearings and has described those areas as “health deserts.”