Denzel Washington; Photo courtesy of MGM/The Kobal Collection/Nicola Goode

Two-time Oscar winner Denzel Washington (supporting actor, "Glory"; lead actor, "Training Day") plays Matt Whitlock, police chief of the small and usually sleepy south Florida community of Banyan Key.

But Whitlock soon finds himself enmeshed in a steamy subtropical noir, where the combination of $500,000 in confiscated drug money, marital problems and a potentially fatal illness lead to several murders and looming career suicide.

It seems the good chief, separated from his Miami-based police detective wife, has become involved with the lovely Ann, who also happens to be married. When Ann faces recurrence of the cancer she thought she'd beaten, Whitlock naturally wants to help her get an expensive experimental treatment available only in Switzerland. And that drug money is just sitting there in the police department safe, so ...

If only Ann had decent health insurance, the good police chief would not have had to steal that evidentiary money. OK, she was a deceitful, conniving woman and no Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy would've changed that. But it might have made her efforts to double cross Whitlock a bit harder.

Thankfully, most of us don't face the drastic health-care dilemma that almost brought down Whitlock before he figured out Ann's underlying scheme. But we've all had to face doctor bills full of overcharges, claims our insurance company refused to pay or, even worse, found ourselves without any insurance at all.

So heed the money message from "Out of Time": Check out your health care coverage thoroughly before you have to submit a claim.

-- Text by Kay Bell