If we're going to be honest, Meredith is always doing something wild on Grey's Anatomy. The current head of general surgery at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital has been in the middle of quite a few sticky situations, but her latest might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
In season 15's May 2 episode, Meredith makes the split-second decision to save a young patient's life at dire risk to her livelihood. Gabby Rivera and her father come to Grey Sloan having exhausted every other resource and in desperate need of aid. Traveling to the US in hopes of finding care for Gabby but unable to get insurance to cover anything, her father is at his wits end. When Meredith and Alex do tests, they find a mass in Gabby's colon, meaning they have to operate immediately. But when Gabby's father is unable to swing last-minute state coverage, Meredith tells him she'll figure it out.
Apparently, this means committing insurance fraud! Meredith decides to put down her daughter Ellis's name on Gabby's forms, because her insurance will cover the surgery. Personally, I have to wonder why Meredith doesn't just perform the surgery pro bono. She's on the board of the hospital and is related to the Grey in Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, so she definitely could have done something that doesn't involve breaking the law. But daredevils are gonna dare, and Meredith pushes forward with her fraud. When Webber finds out what she's done, she doesn't apologize for it.
"The system failed him. The system is broken," she says. "We know it is. So what does that say about us if we don't fix it?"
I mean, she's not wrong. The doctors go through with the surgery, and Webber reams Meredith after the operation. But he also poses the idea that they make Gabby seem sicker to keep her in the hospital for 30 days, which is when a new state program will kick in and allow her to be covered regardless of income. That will keep Gabby and her father from being deported and mean that Meredith won't go to jail for insurance fraud. But before that plan can come to fruition, Meredith's fraud is discovered.
In the penultimate episode of the season, Catherine and Chief Bailey pull DeLuca into a boardroom to discuss the surgery. In a grand gesture of his love — and a misguided attempt to be a hero to save Meredith from her own actions — DeLuca takes the fall, turning himself in to the police. Even though Meredith is clearly against the idea (but unable to stop him because she's stuck in the hospital's hyperbaric chamber), he goes ahead with his plan.
Meredith is a grown woman, so it's confusing to me why DeLuca feels the need to fall on his sword and save her. She knew exactly what she was doing when she made that decision, and the consequences are hers to bear. DeLuca confessing for a felony that he didn't commit isn't going to save anyone — it's not that hard to figure out that he doesn't have any access to Ellis's insurance information to be able to put it on any forms. So he just puts himself in hot water for lying and gets Meredith further in the sh*t for delaying the investigation into the fraud.
The real question is how bad are the consequences going to be when the pieces all fall into place? It's been mentioned already that Meredith has gotten into some wild stunts before; in fact, she's even been fired before. Remember when she is caught tampering with Derek's Alzheimer's trial and loses her job? Getting in trouble is usually jokes for Meredith, but now she is a mother of three and probably can't handle getting in trouble like she used to. And now she has DeLuca caught up in the web of lies as well — even though she never asks him to get involved.
With the season finale rapidly approaching, there's no way this situation will be tied up neatly in a bow. Both the fates of Meredith and DeLuca will most likely be left in limbo until season 16. So we'll have plenty of time to wonder how Meredith is going to get her way out of this sticky pickle.
