Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 11, 1995                   TAG: 9510110030
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BILL FOR A 48-HOUR STAY RECEIVES ARDENT SUPPORT

The subject was not taxes, welfare revision or Medicaid. What has prompted thousands upon thousands of letters, postcards and phone calls is Bradley's drive to force health insurers to pay for at least 48 hours of hospital care for newborn babies and their mothers.

In a recent two-week period, Bradley's office received more than 10,000 forms printed in the October issue of Good Housekeeping magazine, which were clipped and sent by readers to show support for the newborns' and mothers' health protection bill, which he initiated and is co-sponsoring with Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan.

Many letters are from women whose insurance companies or health maintenance organizations forced them out of the hospital less than a day after they gave birth and whose babies became critically ill or died because, in their own exhaustion or inexperience, the parents failed to see danger signs that a nurse or doctor would have spotted with an extra day's hospital stay.

Among the letters was one from Bianca Scelfo of Brooklyn, Conn., whose insurance company covered only 24 hours of hospital care for her and her newborn daughter, Jordan. A day after they went came home, Jordan was taken back to the hospital with jaundice so severe that it required six days of treatment.

``I firmly believe,'' Scelfo wrote, ``had our insurance company paid for more than one day, her jaundice would have been diagnosed earlier and she would not have become so ill.''