UPDATE: This morning there has been fast posting and a few "My Health Care Horror Stories" that dropped too quickly. Please see My Health Care Horror Story: My Son, Adam and Why We Need a Public Option and rec it. It needs to be on the Rec list.
I have been working on this for a few weeks already but never felt like it was quite ready to publish. The original idea was to share my own personal health insurance nightmare, but I discovered that I couldn't comfortably share it in such a public forum.
So instead, I have permission to share a few of my friends' stories.
I have put their stories in blockquotes to set them off from the rest of the diary.
I know a few women who have discovered lumps in their breasts, gone in for treatment, and then had the insurance company refuse coverage. One such person was my friend Barbara.
Barbara worked in the (get this) mammogram Radiology department where I go for my screenings. She was employed at that hospital for six months, full-time, and then went in for her regular mammography screening. The results were not good.
She had a lump in her breast and needed to go in for a biopsy. She eventually required full-fledged cancer treatment: radiation and chemo. During this time, she started to receive notices from her insurance company that the care would be denied. They claimed the cancer existed prior to her becoming employed at the hospital and receiving their coverage. So they denied...delayed...denied...
Keep in mind that she had group insurance, not just individual insurance.
Fighting these insurance companies while simultaneously getting treatment was an absolute nightmare for her. The nonpayment notices started to arrive soon after she received her first treatments. She called her company to enlist their help, and they did everything they could to prove to the insurance company that she was employed and was entitled to their health care. It didn't matter. They had drawn their line in the sand.
She is still fighting them to this day.
Now I want to tell you about a dear friend "Ciara" and her beautiful twenty-something year old daughter, Melissa.
Ciara's daughter was engaged to be married when she discovered a lump in her breast. She had health insurance. I need to backtrack just a little. Ciara has had two older sisters who both died of breast cancer in their 40s and 50s. That means Ciara and her daughter Melissa already knew they had a familial gene for an aggressive form of breast cancer. So they ate right, bought insurance, and prayed to God to keep them cancer-free.
Thus, Ciara and her daughter were extremely concerned when the lump was discovered. Ciara went to the doctor's appointments with her daughter as her advocate. And they asked for a mammogram. The insurance people denied them the mammogram. They said, "She's too young and it's unlikely that a mammogram would be clear on someone that age."
So Ciara asked the doctor to prescribe the mammogram and that she was willing to pay for it out of pocket. Even that was a battle. They said, "No!"
Ciara asked for a biopsy as well. The insurance companies denied the biopsy request, too! So then Ciara had to fight with the doctor's office for that treatment as well, begging them to do the procedure at her expense!
Ciara asked for a second opinion. They marched to a new doctor for a second opinion. Even that doctor agreed with them: given the serious breast cancer risk (and the aggressive strain of cancer that ran in the family) it would be wisest to do the mammogram and do a biopsy immediately.
The insurance company once again denied. Furthermore, they made it clear that if a cancer was discovered via either of those methods (and without their consent to those tests) then they would not cover further treatment.
Ciara fought with the insurance company for almost two years.
The last time I spoke to her, she told me that Melissa is fine and cancer-free. I do not know if they paid out of pocket or if the insurance company relented.
TWO YEARS. Is that not life or death? Now...that's a clear case of the insurance company's murder-by-spreadsheet actions coming between a patients health with possibly deadly consequences.
There's more people whose stories I want to share.
I also worked with a man who had a huge (and I mean HUGE) lump on his cerebellum (base of his brain) and he was not insured. Who knows if it was benign or cancerous but it was so large that it was clear he should have received treatment for it. He didn't. He's part of the large group of part time employees living without health care insurance.
I also want to tell you "Jay's" story.
ay is a different co-worker of mine, a young man, who had chronic kidney stones. Jay was employed part time--and due to the extreme seriousness and his own fragile state, he was unable to work full time and unable to get health insurance.
When I first met Jay, he was somewhat sickly but I saw his health deteriorate over the course of time. His stones originally would pass maybe once per month.
I saw his suffering for years! His family made too much money to qualify for medicare, and yet because his health was so severe, he could not work more nor could he move out of his parents' home.
Just imagine the damage being done to his insides because he was not allowed to get treatment!
After two years (approx) he was getting his kidney stone attacks nearly 3-4 times per week and his family was 'on-call' to rescue him from work and bring him home. Jay's screams, as his stones passed, and while waiting for his parents to come, could be heard from the rooms nearby. You can not imagine how many times one of our staff sat on the floor with him, his head in a lap, while he screamed and cried in pain. Then, it would take two to three people to help him get to his parent's car.
After the family lost their home, lost everything, and he was TOO ILL TO EVEN MAINTAIN A PART TIME JOB, medicaid finally kicked in! FINALLY! But Jay is completely unable to work now. He is on permanent disability.
Jay, like many, had no insurance. His insides were being ripped to shreds while the 'system' locked him out of treatment. Isn't this health care rationing? The people who need it do not get it because of a 'pre-existing' or because 'your family has a home?!'
These are the stories we need to bring forth to any Senator or Representative sitting on the fence. These are the stories that we need to have rocket-up in cyberspace until the mainstream media has to reveal them too.
These are the stories that each Senator should keep in mind when they're voting on any reform bill. People should not die so that CEOs can make a better profit.