In the days after a football injury left Eisenhower High School running back Rasul "Rocky" Clark paralyzed from the neck down, he was showered with attention from medical professionals and assured by school officials that he would be well taken care of, he said.

For nearly a decade Clark enjoyed superb medical care — nurses in his home around the clock, access to pain medicines and prescriptions and a storeroom of supplies.

Now the $5 million insurance policy that once covered Clark's medical care has reached its lifetime maximum and come to an end — and along with it, many of the benefits he once enjoyed. Those benefits may have kept him healthy enough to surpass the life expectancy for most quadriplegics, his mother and primary physician said.

"I was told I'd be taken care of all of my life," Clark, 27, said from his bed in his modest house in south suburban Robbins. "That was one thing that brought me comfort. I knew I'd be OK.

"Now it seems like I'm being penalized for living too long. That's how I see it."

Clark is covered by Medicaid and has some state support, but he no longer can afford the gold-star coverage he has had for the last decade.

Clark's case touches on a larger conversation the nation is having about capping health care costs and rationing care, the push and pull between everyone wanting a top-of-the-line policy but not wanting to pay sky-high premiums. Insurance experts say lifetime maximums keep costs down for consumers, and there are policies available with no coverage limit, but those come at a price.

Although it wouldn't affect Clark, under the health reform legislation, lifetime limits are banned for health insurance plans. Because the regulation became effective on Sept. 23, 2010, after Clark's policy expired, it would not benefit him. Still the goal was to make sure that seriously ill consumers didn't find themselves running through coverage with no other options.

For Clark and his family, it's hard to see beyond the specifics of their situation.

Clark can no longer afford to have helpers take him to his former school to give pep talks or volunteer as a coach. Although he'd like to enroll in college art classes, he cannot pay for it now. So Clark stays in bed most of the time.

His mother, who quit her job at a nursing home several years ago, gets a salary from a state program to care for her son. Clark's father visits, and his two sisters help out when they can, but his mother is doing the work three nurses used to do.

Because Clark's right lung is severely damaged, he regularly battles pneumonia and is hospitalized three or four times a year, said his mother, Annette.

As out-of-pocket medical expenses mount, Annette Clark has fallen behind on other bills. Records show she hasn't paid her property taxes in two years.

"It's a lot," said Rocky Clark, who holds on to a positive disposition despite the gloomy circumstances. "My mother is tired. I am tired. All I want is the care I was promised."

Clark did get $5 million in coverage as outlined in his health insurance policy, but he and his mother say they were never told the coverage had a maximum or that they were approaching it.

Clark was 16 and a backup running back on Sept. 15, 2000, when Eisenhower's starting running back separated his shoulder in a game at Oak Forest High School. Clark went into the game and four plays later was tackled and suffered two broken vertebrae in his neck and a spinal injury.

The catastrophic medical insurance provided to Clark by Community High School District 218 was the type of policy that most school districts buy to supplement personal health care policies, just in case something happens on school grounds, said Supt. John Byrne.

In Clark's case, the school policy became his primary way of paying for health care because his family didn't have health insurance at the time of his accident.

In 2000, $5 million seemed like plenty, enough to ensure care for life. Many quadriplegics die within 10 years of their injury because of lung or kidney failure, but Clark thrived during the last decade, in part because of the meticulous health care he received, said his primary care physician, Charles A. Beck.

In August, Clark got a two-sentence letter saying, "the maximum medical benefit under this policy has been processed and no further benefits are available."

Officials with Clark's insurance agency, Health Special Risk Inc., would not discuss his case or their policies on claims or lifetime maximums.

But generally, health insurance policies bought by employers or individuals have set maximums because it keeps the monthly premiums affordable, said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, a national group representing 1,300 health insurance companies.

The school district audited the policy, Byrne said, and found most of the money had been justifiably spent.

Although the district wants to help him secure a new insurance policy, it cannot because he's no longer a student and he's not an employee, Byrne said.

"The school has been having fundraisers for the family," Byrne said. "Our hearts are always there for Rocky, and we'll continue to investigate and find any way we can to help the Clark family."

The district continues to offer students catastrophic medical insurance in the same way and in a similar amount to what it had when Rocky was hurt, which is considered an industry standard, Byrne said.

Without access to the level of care Clark received before the insurance expired, his health is compromised, his doctor said.

"Please understand that the loss of these benefits eventually is going to lead to his demise," Beck wrote in a letter to the district. "We pray that such a hideous outcome could be avoided."

Annette Clark sleeps on a recliner in the living room so she can hear Rocky's soft voice if he calls for her. And she's on her feet for hours at a time feeding and changing him, turning him over, scratching his nose if it itches, removing a stray eyelash that falls in his eye, combing his hair.

"I hate to see him like this," she said. "It bothers me. It's been 10 years, and I never get used to it. If I could change places with him, I would."

It's more than one person can handle, Annette Clark said. And the medical bills keep piling up.

"Something has to be done. There has to be some way to get some help," she said.

"He deserves better."

Tribune reporter Judith Graham contributed to this report

lbowean@tribune.com