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Corrales ER Physician's Health Insurance 'Horror Story' Told Via Internet |
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Written by Jeff Radford
Corrales Comment
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Monday, 25 January 2010 |
Working through Doctors for America, a Corrales physician has put his pleas for genuine health care reform on the internet.
Bob Khlanlian has added the following brief illustration of why
thorough reform is so urgently needed to hundreds of other personal
stories submitted by doctors around the United States.
“Young man with hypertension and no health insurance, with known renal
disease, puts off doctor visits and treatment because he cannot afford
the bills on his salary as a janitor, suffers catastrophic hemorrhagic
stroke and remains now in a coma.
“All this as his family struggles with the bills and near-certainty
that this young man will never regain the ability to walk, speak, work
or care for himself —if, in fact, he survives.”
The director of Doctors for America, Mandy Krauthamer Cohen, urged
public pressure to beat back lobbyists’ efforts to weaken or block the
reform bills now being reconciled in Congress. “While there are many
differences in the two health care bills, there is a common goal:
better access to quality care for the nearly 30 million uninsured
patients who are suffering every day.
“Each story on our website reminds us why doctors continue to push
forward and fight for health care reform, and why strong insurance
maket regulations are so important.”
The website is www.drsforamerica. org/insurancestories.
Doctors for America has more than 16,000 physicians as members in every state.
Miriam Komaromy, an Albuquerque physician, related the following story and pleaded for citizens to demand real reform.
“When I walked into the exam room, a thin, pale, middle-aged man was
sitting patiently in a chair waiting for me. ‘Mr. Richards’ (not his
real name) politely explained that he needed medicine for his heart,
and gave me a list of the medications he was supposed to be taking. I
asked about his living situation, and he told me he had been living in
shelters for the past two years.
“As he responded to my questions I learned this man was an engineer who
had been employed by a prominent technology firm. When he had developed
diabetes in his late 30s he quickly developed severe complications,
including damage to his vision, and later heart trouble.
“He could no longer perform his work duties, and lost his job; he lost
his health insurance along with it. He became depressed and withdrawn,
and eventually his wife left him. His healthcare bills bankrupted him.
He lost his home. He had applied for disability benefits, but had been
turned down.
“As this man’s story unfolded I felt my stomach clench with anxiety for
what would happen to him, and unfortunately I had very little to offer.
As a physician who has worked all my adult life caring for low-income
and uninsured patients, I have so often been in a position to apply a
band-aid —in this case, arranging for him to receive a month’s worth of
his medicine free of charge— but not a solution to the huge problems
that face my patients on a daily basis.
“In order to get in to see a health care provider at my clinic he had
stood in line for over an hour in the heat on two successive days,
waiting to find out if we would have an available appointment. Tonight
he would walk a long distance alone on the street, vulnerable because
of his poor eyesight, and would sleep on a cot in a shelter.
“I was struck all over again by the cruelty of a so-called health care
‘system’ that offers health insurance only to those who are employed.
For this man, illness had caused the loss of his health insurance, and
now lack of health insurance and adequate medical care was allowing his
disease to progress unchecked.
“ It was undoubtedly shortening his lifespan, and was creating a
situation in which we as taxpayers will all pay the enormous costs of
providing care for him as he becomes so severely disabled that he
requires hospitalization, heart surgery, and perhaps dialysis.
“Yet we as a nation have not been willing to pay the upfront costs that
could help this man and so many others to get the care that could help
prevent or slow disease complications and extend functional years of
life.
“Who are we as a people? How have we allowed it to become the norm that
our citizens go hungry, sleep on the street, and do not have access to
basic medical care? Nations vastly poorer than ours make the choice to
treat health care as a human right, and provide health care for all
citizens. Yet we each know deep down that a sudden twist of fate could
land us in a devastating situation like my patient Mr. Richards’.
“The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, ‘Of all forms of
inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and
inhumane.’ Paradoxically, in our country health insurance seems largely
to be reserved for the healthy.
“We have come to a historic moment, when we finally have a president
who is willing to put all of his weight behind passing comprehensive
health care reform. The outcome is not guaranteed; most worrisome is
the backlash against the option of a public health care plan.
“The so-called ‘public option’ would help to loosen the stranglehold
that the private insurance industry has on our health care system. It
would offer meaningful competition to for-profit insurers, would help
to reduce costs for medical care, and would provide comprehensive
insurance similar to Medicare.
“Our president and our country need us each to speak out and let our
congressional representatives know that comprehensive health care
reform with a public health insurance option is essential. Let them
know that this is not just what we want, it is what we demand.”
While much of the 2010 session of the N.M. Legislature is expected to
be devoted to slashing state government departments’ costs, advocates
for health care reform will try to advance proposals that will augment,
or at least dovetail with, new federal programs.
If the U.S. Senate bill, already roughly similar to that which
gained House approval November 7, can be combined while retaining
support, it will eventually mean more New Mexicans will have better
access to medical treatment. Insurance companies would no longer be
permitted to deny coverage for people with pre-existing medical
conditions, nor to hike a person’s monthly premiums so high that they
would be forced to drop coverage.
Both of New Mexico’s U.S. senators have said they favor the idea of a
“public option” creating a federal health insurance program that could
compete with private insurors’ offerings as a means of keeping
insurance affordable. However, that is likely to be removed from the
final reconciliation bill that would have to be approved by both the
House and Senate.
In a statement just before the House vote, Congressman Martin Henirich
said he believed the bill would create stability in the insurance
market, contain health care costs, guarantee patients’ choice of
providers, improve health care quality and cover virtually everyone.
He said the Affordable Health Care for America Act would not add to
the federal budget deficit. “In fact, the non-partisan Congressional
Budget office has estimated the bill will reduce the deficit by $103
billion during the first 10 years” of its implementation.
He stressed the importance of ending the insurance industry’s practice
of cutting off coverage for people who had been paying into the system
for years. “We will create stability for health consumers, including
families, seniors and small business.
“No longer will insurance companies be able to deny coverage for a
‘pre-existing condition,’ an industry-created policy that has denied
coverage to women for being pregnant and to a four-month-old for being
overweight.”
The act, he said, would make such actions illegal and would ensure
“care for those who need it, not just those who can afford it.”
President Barack Obama issued a statement shortly after passage of the
House act, hailing “the historic vote the House took last night on
health insurance reform. For years we’ve been told that this couldn’t
be done. After all, neither chamber of Congress has been able to pass a
comprehensive health insurance reform bill for generations. But last
night the House proved differently.
“The Affordable Health Care for America Act is a piece of legislation
that will provide stability and security for Americans who have
insurance; quality, affordable options for those who don’t; and bring
down the cost of health care for families, businesses, and our
government, while strengthening the financial health of Medicare. It
is legislation that is fully paid for and it will reduce our long-term
federal deficit.
“Given the heated and often misleading rhetoric surrounding this
legislation I know that this was a courageous vote for many members of
Congress, and I’m grateful to them and for the rest of their colleagues
for taking us this far.
“But more importantly, so are the millions of Americans whose lives
will change when we achieve insurance reform —families with
pre-existing conditions who will finally have insurance coverage;
parents who will be protected from annual and life-time limits that can
force them to pay exorbitant out-of-pocket costs for a child’s illness;
small businesses that will finally be able to cover their employees;
and working folks who will finally be able to afford health insurance
for the very first time.
“Americans like Katie Gibson, a cancer survivor from Bozeman, Montana,
who shared her story with me this summer. Because of a medical
condition Katie’s insurance policy was suddenly revoked when she needed
it most, even though she was paying her premiums.
“I called Katie this morning and I told her that when the bill that
passed last night becomes law we’ll be able to protect Americans just
like her from the kinds of insurance company abuses she had to
endure. And I told her that it was because of her willingness to share
her story and the extraordinary activism that she and people like her
all across the country displayed —not just this year, but over the last
several years— that we are finally this close to getting reform done,”
the president said.
“Their lives are what’s at stake in this debate, and moments like this
are why they sent us here —to finally meet the challenges that
Washington has put off for decades; to make their lives better and this
nation stronger; to move America forward. That’s what the House did
last night when it brought us closer than we have ever been to
comprehensive health insurance reform in America.
“Now it falls on the United States Senate to take the baton and bring
this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people. And
I’m absolutely confident that they will. I’m equally convinced that on
the day that we gather here at the White House and I sign comprehensive
health insurance reform legislation into law, they’ll be able to join
their House colleagues and say that this was their finest moment in
public service —the moment we delivered change we promised to the
American people and did something to leave this country stronger than
we found it.”
Before the U.S. Senate voted 60-39 to move the senate’s version of the
health care reform bill to the floor for debate late last year, Senator
Tom Udall explained why he felt it would bring relief to the people of
his state.
Udall noted that the vast majority of New Mexicans would gain access to
quality, affordable health care through the reform legislation, which
was unveiled after months of consideration by two Senate
committees. Small businesses and rural areas also stand to benefit from
reform, he said.
“The health care reform we’re debating today will impact every person
in this country. Whether you are searching for affordable insurance for
yourself or watching helplessly as a loved one is denied coverage,
every American stands to gain something through this historic
legislation,” Udall said.
“In my home state of New Mexico, the people I represent don’t just
have a lot to gain with this reform. They also have a lot to lose if
this reform isn’t enacted.
“For New Mexicans, the status quo isn’t an option. That’s because,
without this health care reform, our state is expected to experience
the largest increase in insurance premiums of any state in the
union. In 2016, without this reform, a family of four in New Mexico can
expect to pay an astounding $28,000 a year in health care premiums.
That will consume more than 56 percent of that family’s projected
income for the year.
“Affordability is already one of the key barriers to obtaining
coverage in my state. Since 2000, premiums for residents have risen 110
percent in New Mexico. As a result, almost one-in-four people don’t
have insurance –giving us the second-highest uninsured rate in the
nation.
“Enactment of this reform legislation would make as many as 249,000
middle class New Mexico residents eligible for premium credits to ease
the burden of these high costs.
“In addition, almost 238,000 New Mexicans would be eligible for new
private coverage through the exchange or from their employers. And
another 124,000 would be eligible for new Medicaid coverage.
“And for the families that already have insurance, they win, too. They
will likely see lower premiums thanks to increased competition in the
market.
“The bottom line is that, with this reform, the vast majority of New
Mexicans would have access to quality, affordable health care for
themselves, and for their families.
“But reform will also benefit New Mexico’s small businesses. In 2006,
less than 35 percent of small businesses in my state offered coverage
for their employees. That figure means our state ranks dead last in
employer-sponsored insurance in the nation –a dubious distinction, to
say the least.
“I’ve talked to a lot of these small business owners over the past
months. They all tell me pretty much the same thing: ‘I would love to
offer coverage for my employees, but it is just too expensive.’ They
say they’re having a hard time affording insurance for their own
families.
“To those small business owners, I say help is on the way. The Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act will help you provide insurance to
your employees by providing federal tax credits of up to 50 percent of
premiums should you choose to offer coverage.
“In addition to lowering costs for individuals and families and
helping small businesses, this reform also will give our rural
communities additional tools to provide quality, affordable health care
for all of their residents.
“Of the two million people who call New Mexico home, about 700,000
live in rural areas. They’re more likely to be uninsured, and often
must travel hundreds of miles for preventive or emergency care, if
they’re able to find any at all.
“In this bill, we’ve included pay incentives to recruit more
physicians to underserved rural areas. We will improve dental services
in rural areas. We will extend Medicare payments for ambulances in
rural areas. And we will expand tele-health programs so that rural
residents may receive specialized treatment not available in their
local areas.
“Finally, we’ve made sure that this legislation won’t result in an
unfunded mandate for our state government –which is already
experiencing the pain of budget cuts thanks to the economic downturn.
This legislation will require the federal government to cover 100
percent of the cost of the Medicaid expansion from 2014 through 2016,
and 95 percent of the cost after that.
“When it comes to health care today, too many New Mexicans are living
on a cliff, teetering on the edge of financial ruin. All it would take
is an illness or a job loss and they could fall into an abyss of
medical invoices, bill collectors and bankruptcy. For these New
Mexicans, the status quo isn’t an option.
“This bill offers a life rope to these New Mexicans to pull them back
from the precipice. Passing it would provide stability and security to
those who have insurance, affordable coverage to those who don’t, and
lower costs for families, businesses, and government.
“This is a historic moment…. I urge my colleagues to join me in
seizing it, and let’s begin the debate of this long overdue legislation
to reform our broken health care system.” |
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