Price of admission: $105,000

Eirene

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Tuesday April 29, 2008 · 5:17 PM PDT

2008/04/29 · 17:17

You know, I really should be reading a grant right now, but after seeing this article from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, I am just too angry – and scared – to focus on anything else.

It begins thus:

When Lisa Kelly learned she had leukemia in late 2006, her doctor advised her to seek urgent care at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. But the nonprofit hospital refused to accept Mrs. Kelly's limited insurance. It asked for $105,000 in cash before it would admit her.

Sitting in the hospital's business office, Mrs. Kelly says she told M.D. Anderson's representatives that she had some money to pay for treatment, but couldn't get all the cash they asked for that day. "Are they going to send me home?" she recalls thinking. "Am I going to die?"

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