Boy who knew writing about my medical bills was going to start a fad.
As I said before, I just thought everyone knew that when you had a catastrophic illness you wound up with huge bills despite being “fully insured,” with your insurance company working overtime to find reasons to deny your claims. “Out of network,” “in excess of usual and customary” or “not medically necessary” are the mechanisms they use to keep you paying. And paying. And paying.
So I thought I’d share yet another one. The bill at the left is from another doctor. The “your responsibility to pay” portion — $5,336.13. So just in case anyone was thinking that the bill for $15,684.94 was some kind of anomaly, lemme tell ya — I got a box full of ‘em.
For anybody keeping count, this is in excess of the $11,000 I had to pay in “out of pocket” expenses last year, as well as this year (because my treatment fell across two calendar years), and the $307 per month I pay for the insurance in the first place. And the $4000 test I mentioned that which diagnosed my breast cancer that has been deemed “not medically necessary?” I checked and I was wrong. The bill is for $4500.
Our good friend Maura from MLN spent time taking care of her father before he passed away, and this was her experience:
Even though he had Medicare AND a great supplemental Anthem plan, it still took me dozens of hours every week to fight denials and mistakes and contest crazy bills to the tune of $67,000….and I’m Phi Beta Kappa! How could an elderly person possibly handle it alone? Or someone who is not college educated or doesn’t realize that you CAN and MUST fight the system?
Adding insult to injury, a year after his death, I’ve just gotten a whole set of medical bills for him out of nowhere. Somehow, Anthem BC/BS has retroactively denied him coverage for the month prior to his death.
It infuriates me just to think of how much worry and stress he had to live with unnecessarily — and he’s one of the “lucky” ones with insurance.
This is the rule, not the exception. And these are the “insurance companies” whose delicate feelings we need to spare when coming up with a plan to get Americans the health care they need to stay alive.
The poor dears.
Related posts:
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- Pay-for-Play Betsy McCaughey Resigns from Medical Device-Maker Board
- NYT: Obama Would Consider Medical Malpractice Reforms?
- Join Me and Medical Students Today to Treat, Not Trick for Generic Drugs!
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Jane is awesome!
The bastards! Hugs to Jane!
Jane!
{{{JANE}}}
I don’t understand anyone who thinks the state of health care is acceptable in this country.
((((JANE!))))
Jane:
That first linky “start a fad” goes into my gmail inbox. Just so you know.
Oh, I love the “retroactive” revision of his care. GAH! This needs to be put on a front burner!
Absolutely on target, Jane.
My brother and I have been working with my parents on their insurance, which includes not only Medicare, a great supplemental insurance contract, and a long-term care policy, which was originally sold by TIAA-CREF.
Still, with all this coverage, a doctor who specializes in geriatric care, and some great people working with us at the care facility, it’s still a tremendous amount of work to collect for care that is clearly covered. We’ve enlisted the assistance of an attorney who specializes in senior issues, and battled daily to get bills paid. It’s really extraordinary.
I can’t figure out the bills… 4 days in the cardiac care unit (I blame Bush) and $40,000 later for no identified problem… looking at the bills almost puts me back in there… and that is with Really Good Insurance…
I was wrong.
I used to say that insurance companies were a necessary evil.
They’re just plain EVIL! [sorry for yelling]
(((((JANE)))))
Hi Jane.
The really heartbreaking thing is that the elderly often simply pay them, then stop taking their meds and eat one meal a day to make up for it. I’ve seen it.
In the thread the other day when you posted a bill, there were offers of help and I sure hope you accepted. Although having the box there to p ss you off might just be good for your fighting spirit; you would know that better than I. I know there’s not much we can do from here in the toobs, but
blessings are here anyway, as always.
It just sucks. I had a wart surgically removed from the end of my finger last month – the insurance company said they would pay up to $1000.
The bill for removing the wart was $2400. To. Remove. A. Wart.
I am fully insured and they STILL figured out a way to screw me.
Good luck Jane…
I deal exactly this kind of stuff now daily in the course of my POA duties for my Mom & Dad. I have a stack of EOB denials a foot high, mostly from Tricare, some from United Healthcare. My Dad is VA / Medicare / United Healthcare / Tricare, my Mom is Medicare / United Healthcare / Tricare. She apparently let his Part-B lapse several years ago (he’s been in a nursing with dementia since 2001), whereas she is still under Part-B.
I plod through piles and piles of obstructive mail that don’t do shit for actual health care. It’s a fucking mess.
reef the dog @ 13
I hope you’ve finally learned to stay away from toads.
Only someone who hasn’t been sick lately could.
The $4000 (correx: $4500) test diagnosis not “medically necessary”?
Just how utterly moronic is that?
The insurance companies are parasites but it’s the doctors that send the bills to collection companies. The situation has gotten to the point where you have to have a lawyer on retainer to deal with this kind of shit. The doctors can’t bill less than the MediCare rates and they can’t discount co-pays but there is no law that says they have to collect.
Biodun @ 17
institutional moronocy
I am lucky to be able to pay to cover most of my employees and some of their family members. I pay thousands a month and the paperwork I get from the insurance company is the loopholes for coverage, not what is covered. It is 3″ thick. No one that doesn’t have universal care is secure about losing their home or business. I have a lot of people that lose jobs if I lose mine, it is absurd, it is criminal.
it has to end, universal health care for every american, now
My father spent 10 days in intensive care before he died. He had “good” insurance all his life and was on Medicare with supplemental coverage. All he didn’t have was dental.
After the funeral, mother got a hospital bill for $100,000 for the 20% of the ICU bill his insurance didn’t pay. Not a pleasant moment, when at age 84 she (a traditional wife of the old school) was learning how to balance a checkbook.
He never even wanted to be on all those machines.
reef the dog @ 13
You should have taped a copper penny to it. Use a new copper penny each night for 2 weeks. Wart b’gone.
Keep doing this. Can someone volunteer to create a “Hugh’s List” of cases of insurance company bad faith denials of medical claims?
Something has got to be done…
ccmask @ 22
Unfortunately, pennies haven’t been made with copper for more than 25 years; they’re mainly of zinc nowadays.
Oye, Jane Something has to be done about this, this is so upsetting.
OT…Keith has a special comment for Chimpy tonight about about his surprise photo op..Should be a good one!
Jane, Oprah Winfrey is evidently looking for people with insurance company issues.
https://www.oprah.com/plugger/templates/BeOnTheShow.jhtml?action=respond&plugId=281300001
I can’t think of many more qualified to discuss this issue on national television than you. Oprah needs to find out how things really are, doesn’t she?
-S
dakine01 @ 25
another victim of the Wart on Error
OT, sorta, Anybody know much about cervical cancer? My brothers girlfirend just found out she has it again after getting it cut before.
scarecrow @ 23
“Bad faith” tends to get their attention. When my insurance co. paid $575 on a $15,750 bill for emergency out-patient surgery..I got the “tough shit” run around until I started talking “bad faith” and State insurance commission.
punaise @ 28
Even in the daytime you can do this. I thought maybe it was just something that steals in about 6pm.
punaise @ 28
Eeeewwwwwwwww.
Nina Katarina @ 16
I agree with you. I’m sitting in clinic where I spend 20-30% of my time not on direct patient care, but on shaking my patients’ meds loose from the insurance corps. The same patients used to get their meds with no hassle through “Medi-Cal”. Now the Bushies’ Medicare Part D (a big sloppy Rethug subsidy to Big Pharma/Big Insurance) has taken over the (non-profit) state plan.
Same patients, same treatment – and every month their meds are delayed, denied, rejected.
Sadly, many people – including wealthy attorneys who frequently comment here at the Lake – hold their fetish of the Free Market so tightly they still spout off that their precious “market” is The Answer.
So – in addition to the greedball megacorps – part of the problem are the self-deluded wealthy American who are so enamored of their religious belief in markets that they will sacrifice your and my lives on the altars of their delusional beliefs.
Of course, the formerly Silicon Valley types I saw in Santa Clara County Mental Health had rapidly learned what the wealthy still lie to themselves (and us) about – being poor in America means shitty (or no) health care.
Because market ideology is a social fiction; yet our biology is an inexorable scientific fact.
And ideologies that ignore empirical reality kill people.
Even wealthy people ought to be able to understand – once it happens to them.
marg @ 21
I’m sorry for your loss.
Hospice, hospice, hospice, hospice.
We can make the machines go away.
Please learn about it for yourself and your family.
I suggest the Health Care model provided by Italy.
Italy is in the top ten for Health Care and the US is 37th. Has the Health Care system in Iraq, made by the neo-cons, been successful?
_____________________
If you are a resident of Italy and covered by the national health plan, hospital services will be provided to you and your dependents free of charge.
Last year, while on a trip to Chicago, I tripped, fell and hit my head on one of the lovely sidewalk trash containers.
I got my first ride in an EMS vehicle ($300 ) and spent a lovely Sunday afternoon in Northwestern Hospital’s ER ($300).
Four stitches and a TDP shot later, I took a cab back to my hotel. On Friday, before I went to the airport, I stopped at the ER to get the stitches out ($100).
Now, my health insurance covers 100% on the day of the accident, and 80% thereafter. But almost 6 months after the accident, I get mail from a company that audits the program, and they want the specifics on the accident…
Reading through their questions I realized they think this is a automobile accident! They’re hoping they can make someone else pay for this.
I would have like to have seen their faces when my reply came in: “I tripped and fell and hit my head.”
What are they going to do, sue the City of Chicago for having large metal trash containers?
kirk murphy @ 33
And it will, kirk, it’s just a matter of time.
Just to back Jane up, my mother’s experience is much the same. She has Hodgekin’s (cancer of the lymph glands). When initially diagnosed, she had excellent insurance coverage. She is also, being a bookkeeper by trade, meticulous about paying bills, maintaining credit rating, etc. In short, she as responsible, intelligent, and financially savvy as could be expected.
Then she got cancer. Over the course of her treatment, she was financially devasted. She couldn’t work and had to go through all the standard fun cancer treatments. In other words, she was completely shafted.
The treatments were successful, but then she had a whole new problem — finding a job. The cancer had kept her from working for a couple of years, and the company that she had worked for no longer had a position for her. Also, since she was “cured”, her insurance company opted not to renew her policy — her history of cancer rendered her essentially uninsurable.
There’s the rub. It took her another two years to find work (and she wasn’t slacking — we’re talking a serious, daily job hunt). The reason? She was uninsurable, and therefore could not be hired by most companies — they had deals with their insurance providers that required 100% enrollment of the workforce in the policy. If you can’t get on the policy, you can’t get hired.
That’s two years of crushing medical debt, no incoming, raising two children, and dealing with the inevitable ongoing health needs. She only avoided banksruptcy through what I consider to be superhuman effort.
Her experience made me loathe health insurance companies. The whole point of insurance, after all, is to shield you from the costs of disastrous events. In her case, the point was utterly lost. Once all was added together, she would have been better off if she had taken all those premiums and dumped the cash into T-bills instead of an insurance policy.
Health insurance is worse than worthless — if you ever had upper-tier medical costs, health insurance actually weakens your position because it drained off resources that could have gone to help pay a few bills.
This is also why I cringe at the idea of “universal health insurance”. If it’s anything like health insurance now, it won’t help if everyone has it. Single-payer is the only thing that could address the problem, IMHO.
Scarecrow,
can you give me the link to that wonderful post you did about asking the right question to solve our healthcare mess? I can’t find my link.
Brisingamen @ 36
No but they might ask for a picture of your shoes.
tw3k @ 29
Go here: MSKCC web info.
Steve-AR @ 18
Steve-AR, I would never send a Medicare/Medical patient to collections for co-pays.
However, all the billing people I’ve ever worked with (including really competent ones at UCLA, as well as incompetent ones who fit in quite well at Catholic Healthcare West) say that the Feds do mandate docs to collect the Medicare co-pays.
I hope they are wrong, but that is the current state of “wisdom” on medical billing passed on to us docs.
Nevertheless, sending poor people to collections for co-pays is reprehensible. [We were told to simply send a bill (to show we’d “attempted” to meet our obligations), and then let the matter drop.]
Can’t wait for single-payer.
Luckily when my DH died of complications of AIDS in 1994, we were very poor so he qualified for DC Medicaid. The last three years of his life were hugely expensive, medically, but we did not pay one penny. The whole last twelve months of his life he was on total parental nutrition and had an implanted morphine pump, we got a huge pharmacy delivery every week, not to mention his AZT, breathing treatments, psychiatrist, dentist, daily nurse care, etc. At that time, there was not even a co-pay for prescriptions covered by DC Medicaid. He had hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of care and medications……we paid nothing at all.
So if you have an expensive chronic disease in the DC metro area, its better to be poor, because you can see the exact same doctors as the “rich people with insurance” and pay almost nothing. I think the co-pay for prescriptions is now $3.00 each under DC Medicaid.
But this is what ALL AMERICANS should be able to have……….rich or poor.
Several years ago, my son (16 at the time) got stepped on by a horse. I took him to thte doctor, got x-rays and was told his foot was bruised, no breaks. He tried to walk on it for about a year, but he walked with his leg twisted around and was in constant pain. Then he fell off the barn landed on the same foot. Took him in again, more x-rays. Bruised again. This time when he did not heal I called the Doctor and demanded a second opinion. The nurse told me “his foot is not broken”. I told her I wanted a second opinion from someone ELSE. And I did not care if his foot was broke or not. He was in pain and it was not healing. It took another two 0months to get a referral. When I got him to a new Doctor. We found out his foot had been broken BOTH times. He had walked on this broken foot so long it damaged his ligaments and he had suffered nerve damage to his feet. He was put in a cast for 12 weeks to try to straighten his leg so he did not walk with his foot twisted sideways. He wsa suuposed to get surgery, but that doctor knew that my insurance on my son was running out at the end of the year and refused to operate on him because my insurance would not cover the after care. Consequently my 18 year old son was told he would be in constant pain for the rest of his life and he might as well get used to it. A doctor told him this.
I did not have enough sense to file a malpractice suit against the first doctor and now it is too late. I have no use for doctors or for insurance companies after what was done to him.
HI Jane,
I can sympathize. I’m looking at a foot-high stack of EOBs from my wife’s emergency brain surgery last fall and wondering where the people in this country who think our health care system works are coming from. We had “good” insurance supposedly designed for self-employed people but are contending with bills that exceed $40,000. The day after I received an EOB showing that our insurance company was paying only $15,000 on a $64,600 bill, I researched our company and found it was owned by The Blackstone Group, a hedge fund controlled by Stephen A. Schwarzman who is worth over $7 billion and who pays less % of taxes on the earnings from his hedge fund than I pay on my wages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Schwarzman
Welcome to the “two Americas” that John Edwards is talking about.
Strategerie @ 27
Please! Jane, With your permission I would sent a note with links to your posts on this subject. You would be a perfect guest, imo.
This is why alternative medicine is a growth industry. Even if it doesn’t work, it’s still cheaper than the standard route.
Someone near and dear to me used to work for an insurance company. She will tell anyone who will listen that America needs to get on single-payer, NOW.
Helen @ 41
Isn’t Sloan Kettering kinda pricey?
One of my daughters was born premature by a few weeks and had lung problems. Out of pocket expenses were 16,000 dollars for her, despite being “fully” insured through work. My wife cost another 8,000 out of pocked for the delivery.
I hate insurance so bad it makes my eye’s hurt.
I have a similar situation, only my out of pocket is supposed to be $3500 per year, insurance clocks in at $360/month, and for treatment due to a bad fracture in 2003, I now have $93,000 in ‘unreimbursed’, “This is coming out of your pocket, baby” medical expenses.
Not counting the pharmacy bills, or even considering my prescriptions jumped from $36.00 per month for the one prescription to $145.00 per month in the past 6 months. Oh, and my premiums doubled between 2002 and 2003, then doubled again.
Then again, four years of college level math probably means I just “don’t get it”.
Sigh.
zennurse @ 40
Really? They were a brand new pair of Hush Puppy Bounce…
Adding my 2 cents to this all too familar story: This country desperately needs more doctors. The physician trade groups fight and fight to protect their members at the expense of all of us. Here in NE I believe the last medical school to open was at least 35 years ago. Perhaps a United States Medical Academy along the lines of our military academies.
The lesson is to call your doctor’s office and ask if they will take Blue Cross (meaning they are in-network). If not, you will end up with huge bills.
whenwego @ 53
Going out-of-network surely makes the bills worse (and is often unavoidable with serious or unusual diseases), but even if you stay in-network, you’ll still get screwed.
kirk murphy @ 42
I always discounted to insurance and after that became illegal sent out the required number of billing attempts (3?) and then let it drop. I am not sure about co-pays other than they can’t be discounted or waived.
tw3k @ 48
Oh – I thought that you were just looking for info. Truthfully I don’t know where we rate price-wise compared to other cancer hospitals. I can try to find out if you want.
Pennies are still copper on the outside, so presumably there’d be sufficient exterior copper to do the Wart Begone trick.
Incidentally, the U.S. had zinc pennies during World War II, to save copper for the war effort. No copper cladding on those; they were zinc-colored.
Add my vote to those in favor of universal, single-payer health coverage. I believe that the League of Women Voters has been advocating this for years. The LWV is an organization the netroots might want to ally more closely with.
Jane:
If you can get there, go on Ophra. You’re pretty, Very well spoken (especially when you’re angry) you have standing to talk about it, and while your’re at it, you might tell all these good folks how much a day we spend in Iraq as opposed to what kind of medical care it could help buy for us. Go, PLEASE.
RES
Eradicate the health insurance industry — we want universal health care not universal health coverage.
Helen @ 56
Sure! Any advice would be appreciated. I’d just be passing it along.
Kim is on facebook too if you want to contact her.
I’ve had three surgeries in my life, two gyn-related, one benign cyst in my breast, all “covered” by Bleu Cr*ss.
On all three, payment was originally denied. I was really lucky, I had a GREAT doctor who just took the bills from me and tackled BC herself (Jane Patterson, legendary OB/GYN and teacher, or so I’ve heard from every female OB/GYN I’ve talked to). The reasons were ridiculous, so obviously trumped up ( eg. no second opinion. True, there were three; maybe the second one got lost?) that the clerkies I talked to had no retort except “Oh. Well, I don’t make the rules… Someone will get back to you” which, of course, they never do.
When I worked for the government, in the late ’70’s, we had one of the first H*O’s as our health plan, Bleu Shiel*. It was fantastic, actually, and kind of how I wish it worked now.
My first visit was to a place that looked like a gym. In the center, down a few stairs, were stress-testing machines and stationary bikes. Upstairs, on two floors, both open in the center, the exam rooms ringed the machines and you went from one room to another for general health, bloodwork, GYN stuff, heart, etc. In one visit you could see any specialist you needed to. My physical took about 1 hours; each subsequent visit was a breeze – and you could pick your doctor once you were in. Not even a co-pay, appointments at your command. I think them days is gone, forever.
My husband has gone through a long drawn out battle with cancer (successful, so far!) this last year. We are very fortunate to have great insurance though a large corporation, they don’t seem to screw with you the same way if you have a big company behind you.
I also don’t know how the elderly, let alone a person going throiugh any major illness without an advocate, deals with some of these things.
I had to fight for hours about getting drugs that were required THAT day for an emergency that the insurance company said could only be ordered by mail and received in a week to 10 days. I thought about just buying the drug myself until I found out a single prescription cost over $5000. What gets me is they always caved in and agreed with me, but it took hours of fighting over lame ass excuses. They even told me that City of Hope’s pharmacy wasn’t a licensed pharmacy…. Absolute B.S.
This reminds me that I have to GO make some calls over some denied claims that were in the middle of his hospital visit…
I was hit by a drunk driver who passed out at the wheel going 45 mph; the insurance company, which had never laid eyes on me, decided that physical therapy was not needed for my back injuries. A member of my household also suffers from Crohn’s disease, and I have to fight every single time we file a claim. I’m waiting for the day we’re facing bankruptcy from the Crohn’s, even though I’m paying $600 per month through an employer-sponsored program for two people.
jim oconnor @ 52
Yes Jim, we do need more physicians, physicians assistants, nurse practioners, and nurses.
How are they trained?
THey are trained by having them come to work in places where an entire staff already knows everything the trainees will learn. We than stand around – the trained staff – and share our educations with the trainees. Takes years -as they learn more, they do more.
This is really expensive.
Uh, I don’t know how to break it to you, but the AMA and the Association of American Medical Colleges have been the Feds to expand funding for medical education (med schools) and post-graduate medical education (residency – aka “specialty training”) for over two decades.
I should know – I was on the Board of the OSR (Organization of Student Reps) within the AAMC for three years in the 80’s.
Did the AMA support expansion? Yep.
Over the long run, those pricy sub-specialists make more money when the whole referral pool increases, and hence the patient stream grows.
After two decades hanging around academic medicine, I believe “organized medicine” has all manner of flaws. But in order to increase US medical education, I’ll work with the folks who want to trainmore docs.
Have to run – next patient here.
I’m afraid you misunderstand the hypocritical oath. “First do not harm” is to the patient. Not the patient’s bank account.
As my daughter learned at about 2:
Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick
She called for the doctor to come quick, quick, quick
The doctor cam with coat & his hat, and he knocked on the door with rat-at-at,
He look at the dolly & he shook his head,
He told Miss Polly “Put her straight to bed”
He wrote on his pad for some pills, pills, pills
and in the morning he sent his bills, bills, bills…
My mother was diagnosed with colon cancer last year; they caught it very early, had her in surgery a week after diagnosis.
She was in hospital, in a private room, for another week, then sent home with daily visits from a nurse for the next six weeks until she was all healed up. They got everything and there’s no sign of a relapse.
I think her total out of pocket expenses were a couple of hundred dollars upfront for medication, mostly painkillers, 100% of which was reimbursed.
My parents’ insurance rates didn’t go up, they’ll have no problem getting treatment in the future, and they won’t have to mortgage the house to pay for Mom’s surgery (or Dad’s heart attack the year before.
Did I mention I live in Canada, where we have single payer, universal public health insurance? What the f*** is America waiting for?
this is revealing.. shrub fundraising by industry:
1 Lawyers/Law Firms
$11,586,846
2 Real Estate
$10,462,556
3 Securities & Investment
$8,811,245
4 Health Professionals
$6,683,489
5 General Contractors
$3,616,403
6 Business Services
$3,602,774
7 Insurance
$3,221,797
8 Commercial Banks
$3,128,920
9 Oil & Gas
$2,596,725
….
16 Hospitals/Nursing Homes
$1,524,847
Source: opensecrets.org
So he got more from insurance, doctors and hospitals together than he did from any other industry
I have recently a reasonable amount of success in fighting medical bills. Not with the insurance companies, but with the medical providers.
Just because they say something costs X, doesn’t mean it does. You know, these medical procedures don’t come with price tags attached to them.
I used the insurance companies determination that the cost was ‘not fair and reasonable’ to
advance a quantum meruit attack on the original bill. It worked. A close look at virtually any medical bill will disclose on its face that the charges are absurd.
Oh.. that’s for the 2004 election
I have (and pay for) some really good insurance. I often get “This is not a bill” statements after treatment and/or procedures. Recently, I got one of these statements which indicated the price of the procedure was $900. Insurance paid $110. The amount I owed to the medical facility was $0. When was the last time someone owed you $900 and you told them “Well, $110 will be enough”? I’ve noticed that all of the candidates and entrenched politicos talk about insurance. I believe that we need to get the insurance companies out of our lives. The poor schmo w/o insurance would surely be billed the entire $900, while I, by virtue of paying $400/month “dues” to the insurance club get away at a 88% discount.
GAH! Feinstein on msnbc squawking about “veto proof majority”.
old gold @ 67
A certified letter from a law firm usually helps to get the attention of the medical provider. Doctors hate to get those envelopes with the “green tape” on the back.
OldCoastie @ 71
that just burns me up
Maybe the answer is to draft (yes, I said a dirty word) all of the young med school doctors into a National Health service where anything they prescribe to a patient is free. This service would be available in all emergency rooms (by mandate), and the insurance companies wouldn’t have a thing to say abou it. As an alternative, this could be a partially volunteer service. Incentive. Volunteer for this service for 3 years and all of your student loans would be paid by the U.S. Government. Where to get the money…hmmm….how about ending the war, and putting an extra five cents on gasoline. It’s your medical insurance premium. Stop complaining. The minute you get sick, you care if free.
whenwego @ 53
the problem with this is if you have a hospitalization and are cared for by docs outside the network, or have surgery where anesthesia group is not in network, or if the radiology group is not, the list goes on. I filed for bankruptcy after my son’s kidney surgery at 14, was insured but had overwhelming and out of state out of network and balance bills. There is no easy answer anywhere now, even Medicaid will not cover some meds which may not be in their use guidelines, especially for serious illness, because they are ridiculously expensive and sometimes are more palliative than curative.
I also ran a program funded originally by NIH which provided mammograms and pap smears to women who were uninusred or underinsured. My job was to define their financial need and insurance status and enroll them. I set up the program with private docs and local hospitals, they sent me the bills, my agency paid the bills and we billed the state for reimbursement. Our rates were the same as Medicare. I had numerous docs who, even knowing the nature of my program, wanted to be able to balance bill my patients. I had to go to the Medical Director of the hospitals I worked with to get them to stop. This included radiologists, surgeons and ob/gyns who were getting new business and getting reimbursement that they were accepting from regular medicare patients. It was disheartening, I did it for 5 years, eventually moving into the education part of the role and away from that bullsh t. But we solved it and the program lives on with 1800 women being served annually.
My daughter had a biking accident recently. She was in a class from the local community college when it happened. She was knocked out for about 5 minutes and was taken to the local ER. She was in the ER for about four hours. An MRI was done. The bill came to $25,000.00. The hospital discounted the bill for the college since they were paying most of it to $18,000.00. In the end my daughter got a bill for $4,000.00. She had no insurance but has purchased it now. Ironically, she starts graduate school in nursing in January.
My husband and I have our own medial horror story that I have written about several times here. The quick version is we had to file for bankruptcy due to $120,000 in hospital bills. After that we both got sick again. We had some insurance coverage and one hospital discounted my husband’s heart surgery by 70%. We were lucky, I guess.
I believe that the asshole corps saw all of that home equity and tapped into it right quick.
Elliott @ 39
it was in a review of SiCKO:
I think we should start opening up our own clinics in our own communities. I know I could do a better job than the crooks who run the insurance companies. Maybe we could get basic care to everyone this way. And basic preventative care would end much suffering. It is a dream.
marymccurnin @ 77
It doesn’t have to be a dream. With the right people involved, it could happen.
Kirk @ 64:” Did the AMA support expansion? Yep.”
You’re certainly entitled to your opinion, but not sure I’m buying. Self-interest has a way of governing these things.
If you know, how many medical schools have opened in the US over the last 25-30 years? Nursing schools? I could be wrong but I seem to recall BU closing its nursing school about 12 years ago.
I’ve already written Jane about this, but I thought everyone else might find it interesting.
So, to tell a long story bluntly, I was injured in combat a few times, and sent home. As a result of one of the injuries, I was diagnosed with AML, of the M4 variety. (That’s Leukemia)
Now, this is a pretty simple scenario, you might say. Nope, turns out the VA wanted me to pay for MOST if not ALL of my medical treatment, including chemotherapy, and those all too popular “unnecessary” drugs, many of which are for pain. But, I guess the concession I can take away from this is that when ‘Lil Georgie is done playing in the sandbox, he puts his toys away, if he ever gets done playing, that is. I’m (barely) living proof.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. The only way to fix our health coverage problems is to get the insurance companies out of the mix. So far, I’ve only heard Edwards say anything remotely like that.
scarecrow @ 77
thank you!!
one of your best, iimss
My sympathies to you and the people contacting you about this. The current medical insurance system is scandalous. It is very difficult for the patients and family members to deal with, both emotionally in just in terms of resources needed to keep up and figure out the paperwork (setting aside the stress). There are some very sick oldsters in my family. One of my relatives is a a very good financial consultant with a very sick parent, and she is overwhelmed and freaked by the system. She knows the tricks, so is careful to make necessary strategic moves for coverage, and knows how to keep all the important papers signed and delivered, and has avoided financial disaster. But she is seriously stressed.
My experience is that policy types almost never think about this aspect of health care. They are obsessing over unecessary care, and neurotic medicare recipients getting to many tests just to have some company from med techs doing the tests, etc. I’ve seen several analyses of the effect of consumer driven health care that obsess over the effect on most people, with not nearly enough attention to people with major health prolems. Whenever you read about consumer driven health care, defined to mean self-coverage with a tax-exempt health savings fund for major health crises (cancer, stroke, severe diabetes), what you see above will be your entire life wrt to health coverage. Everything will be like this, except worse.
OT:
TPM seems to be maintaining an ongoing surge bamboozlement guide this week.
The Big Bamboozle
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/052226.php
My take on the iraq debate that is taking place in public: Simply refuse to play that game. Explain to people that the whole focus and viewpoint of the administration is a dodge and Big Lie. The focus on success of military tactics is Changing the Topic. Strategic goal of the surge has been a total, unmitigated failure. Must of the blame goes to Cheney-Bush doing nothing at all to further the strategic aims. They think threatenting to kill people is the most effective tool for all foreign policy problems, all the time everywhere. Part of the blame is on the Iraqi government, but since that is partly a puppet government set-up, some of that blame transfers to the usual suspects.
Take a look at Dodd’s campaing website and see his statement on the surge. That sums it up. (and I am not a big Dodd supporter, but I think he has made the best concise statement of the situation)
BobbiG at #14
I have only Medicare & Tricare for Life, and all my bills are paid promptly, no questions asked! I live in Wisconsin — maybe that makes a difference?
For-profit insurance has had its chance. It has blown its chance. It has failed, and needs to be closed down.
Hillary thinks she can make them play nice. In truth, they’ve made her play nice. Of the leading Dem candidates, Edwards is saying exactly the right thing: no more chances for for-profit health insurance. They’ve shat in their own nest.
And the way to bring this about? Divide and conquer. Get the people in scrubs to cheer on the demise of the people in suits.
I still owe around $15,000 on my knee replacements from two years ago, that the insurance refused to pay. There was about $70Kleft over, but the insurance co was being fined by the NYS insurance commission at the time, so they paid more to the hospital. I pay $200 a month. The doctor is nice about it. I had about a year of hassle from the diagnostics company, but they’re accepting the payment.
I’ll pay for several years, but it was worth it to get out of the wheelchair and walk everywhere.
yellowdogD @ 82
read Scarecrow’s review of SICKO
I haven’t had any new episodes of illness lately, but I thought I would mention two of my pet peeves. First, the insurance company sends me so much crap, including junk mail and what have you, that I started not bothering to open up their mail. Sure as I don’t open something, though, damned if I don’t wind up getting something that I should know.
Second, I recently tried to do a cost analysis to see where it would be best to get my prescriptions. So I called Walgreens and asked for a quote for the cost of each of my drugs. That came to over $800, but they were pleasant and informative. Then I called Walmart for the same information. That came to over $500. Walmart was also pleasant and informative, but I had none of my prescriptions there at the time. Then I called Express Scripts, who I had switched to in an effort to save money. They told me they couldn’t tell me how much my drugs cost, that the insurance company wants them to refer me back to them for quotes on drug costs. They handle all prescription drugs everything for the insurance company, including paying Walgreens prescriptions. So I called the insurance company, HealthNet, and they said that they could only tell me what the cost of my drugs had been in the past. They had no idea how much the costs would be if prices changed since my last order. Well, I needed to order Advair, which is expensive at $225 per diskus at Walgreens, but only $175 at Walmart. HealthNet told me that the cost of the diskus from Express Scripts was $174.38. My problem was that I only had $367 left before I fell into the donut hole so I couldn’t afford for the price to raise, but it did raise by about $12/diskus times 3 diskus, because Express Scripts works on 3 month supplies. I will now have to come out of pocket with that money, but I couldn’t find that out prior to my order. I’ve never seen this sort of thing in my life before, except for this insurance thing. I don’t understand this way of doing business, and I don’t think it’s right.
jim oconnor @ 80
Opening new nursing schools is not the issue, at least in nursing, it’s finding people who will take the paltry pay to teach nursing students. Nurses are leaving the profession in droves, and a wave of nurses will be retiring just as the Boomers arrive in their twilight demanding care. I know folks who actually gave up on applying to nursing schools and became PA’s or EMT’s, one frined got her EMT and her Paramedic while waiting to be accepted to nursing school, where she is now. There are many schools in MA, not enough instructors.
This is simple. That’s why it’s so hard.
HEALTH OF AMERICANS is a “commons”. The administration of this commons should be free from profit. Barring that, excessive profits.
Government should be dogging the profit of insurance companies. HealthSouth, Kaiser, Blue Cross, take a look at just the bonuses paid to their CEOS. Is there excess profit there?
Of Course.
This is the type of predatory capitalism that cries out for regulation. But barring THAT a not-for-profit system should be established. Don’t mess with the existing insurance companies, just provide a real alternative that provides just compensation for all involved, structured like a credit union, with excess profits returned to the members.
Didn’t we have this system in the 50’s, back when corporations used terms like “moral obligation”?
This thread is terrifying. so far we are healthy but what would Medicare pay?
There must not be health care for profit.
And I feel sad. My sister-in-law who seems like a nice person has a job with Anthem. figuring which part of operations can be paid for and which are unnecessary. Shes very necessary to them and is paid well.
cynic @ 74
I’m not convinced by precisely that model, but the sentiments are correct.
I’d sell it this way: commit to the federal single-payer plan for a set period, and we’ll wipe out your college loans. Because you now have doctors running up a mortgage’s worth of debt to get their MD, which translates into inflated salaries and higher fees. Debt forgiveness for new graduates gives young doctors the chance to live well in their 20s and 30s, while contributing to a healthier healthcare system.
peanutbutter @ 5
I don’t think many people in this country think the state of health care is acceptable, but with the corporate media informing most people, they have been convinced that we just need to reduce the red tape on the insurance companies to fix it.
In other words, just keep what we’re doing now, but more of it. Of course NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX et al don’t like to point out that we’ll get the same results, just more of it.
The good news is, I think people know the system is broke, we just have to find a way to break through the corporate news filters so people know a REAL solution is possible.
My friend has been on SSI and SSDI for years. Her medications run $850 per month and the tab is paid by Medicare and Medicaid. If she were to marry her significant other of 13 years,she would lose her SSI of $330 per month and her Medicaid. They would need to come up with about $750 per month for private insurance and medications, plus annual deductible, copays for doctor visits, etc. Medicare would cost about the same. He nets about $1800.00 per month. If we had national health care, they would marry in a New York minute. She is likely to outlive him if all go well, and will be left with an income of $642 per month. I asked her what she would do in this situation. She looked at me with a sad little smile and said, “I guess I’ll just blow my brains out.”
She deserves better. We all do.
OH NO, CSpan3 has moved to Young America’s conservative Foundation, oh no, I’m melting, I”m melting…..
Insurance … we all have a story, somewhere, about it.
My mother told me about the company (supplemental?) health insurance:
It started out as they’d pay 80% of medical.
Then it became 80% of what Medicare didn’t.
Then it became “Oh, Medicare’s already paid, so we don’t have to pay anything”.
Single payer health care for everyone … except insurance executives.
tw3k @ 60
Here’s the link on how to make an initial appointment if Kim is interested in pursuing treatment here.
In addition, if cost is a concern, here’s the link to financial assistance information. We have a program where we assist anyone whose household income is up to four times the poverty rate. Also at this link is the number for financial conselors who will help her decide if she can afford this.
Hope this helps.
yellowdogD @ 82
Actually Kucinich has the best plan. Just FYI.
Uhm, folks? The Federal government will pay off student loans if the student agrees to work for that agency for a certain number of years. They’ve been doing so for a while now.
Brisingamen @ 36
I tripped on the sidewalk on Nevsky Prospekt in Saint-Petersburg, Russia and landed on my wrist. After about three hours I couldn’t move it and went to the hospital.
I was seen within thirty minutes, xrayed, splinted, given painkillers in an envelope (enough for a month), and released.
No questions about health care coverage, if I was a resident (obviously not because my dreadful Russian gives me away). I did not have my insurance card on me (it was at the apartment) and the cashier took a credit card in payment.
Four hundred fifteen dollars. In and out in a little over an hour and ten minutes.
I submitted the bill to my insurance company (US Healthcare) when I got home. It took three months to be reimbursed and a month later I got a letter asking for the specifics of the accident, what store it occurred in front of, etc. I wrote back that it had occurred in the street, in Russia, and never heard from them again.
I’m still waiting for them to settle a claim from an automobile accident that happened in New York in which I cracked two ribs in January, 2006.
As for the cure for our broken system:
Hillary will be announcing her health care plan in two weeks. I read this in a NYTimes story Saturday which quoted her as saying, “I will work within the system.” Went on to tout her “experience plus change”.
I like Hillary. I really do. But I have a bad feeling about this. Is she signaling to the insurance industry that she’s going to have a less scary proposal than Edwards or Obama, and they’d better support her rather than risk getting a President who will really screw things up for them?
That’s the way I read it. Anyone else see this story? She also said something like, “I recognize the importance of the system.”
Jane, my insurance company requires pre-approvals from my doctors before they do any tests, etc. Does yours have any system of letting you know when your getting into the nose-bleed section financially? Do your doctors ever discuss with you any alternatives that would be cheaper and almost as good, or good enough? Do they ever even think about costs at all? I know that I have made my doctors well aware of my financial shortcomings, so they are aware. I also know that they have never attempted to cheat me out of good medical care due to my financial concerns, but when I bring it up, they are very sypathetic and helpful, and very willing to take time to discuss alternative options and their repercussions.
Here is one more of the many things I don’t understand. Surely to dog there cannot be a single family in the US that has not had some kind of health care/insurance horror story. So why do so many Americans not support universal medicare? Why is the US practically the only western industrialized country in the freaking WORLD without some kind of nationalized medicine?
zennurse @ 90: You’ll get no argument from me about higher pay for nurses and instructors. Add better overall working conditions and realistic patient loads. As usual it all goes back to rights on the job for everyone and a stronger labor movement with a much more labor friendly government.
And in my mind another reason to vote for Edwards.
Fresh thread!
I was not insured when I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer in 1999. Went to GYN who said I could choose Duke or UNC hospital and when I told him I had no insurance, he said that they have to treat me. Had surgery on a Friday late in the afternoon–on Sunday, I insisted on being dismissed as I knew the bill for just the hospital room was $7,000 per night. I made arrangements to pay the hospital and drs–total bill was around $20,000. No discount at all so paid $200 a month to drs and $200 a month to hospital. Drs bill was uneventful but the hosp kept changing collection agencies–one time I got a phone call and caller said I was to pay the hosp bill to them and she gave me a Florida address. I told caller I would never pay someone via phone notification and called Duke and told them that I would only pay them and they could send it to whomever they wanted. It was a hassle every month. It’s a wonder I ever healed but knock wood, no further cancer! or
Jane thanks for the good fight! We sure are glad you are kicking it.
Even though many of us are fully aware of the very serious failings of our health care system, Micheal Moore’s film “Sicko” spelled out clearly how other countries have far more humane health care systems.
While there are issues that I do not agree with Senator Clinton on I do believe reforming our Health care fiasco will be one of the very first things she would tackle.
Helen @ 98
Thanks, I’ve passed it along!
Also,
Did anyone catch the response to Eliot Spitzer’s blog on CHIP-S at HuffPo last week? The first couple of posts were virulently pro-market. Okay, I know there are ordinary mortals out there who really do like the system as it stands, but somehow I just can’t buy that they spend all their time scouting the web for anti-industry messages.
In short, I expect we’ll be seeing a lot of paid shills, the internet equivalents of Harry and Louise, urging hysteria on the public when the real health care debate begins.
Other issues:
1. My 80 yr old Mom has good insurance. (Dad retired from the govt.) But of course due to her age she uses Medicare too. Now I believe Medicare has to pay first? Her Drs. are all aging and retiring, and she’s been put in the situation of finding new ones. Many refuse to see her because they are “not taking any new Medicare patients.”
2. Do you know how people in the medical field get covered? I worked in an administrative position at a hospital, and if I used that particular hospital (or one of their affiliates) they would accept insurance only and waive deductibles and the 20%. Physicians I went to did the same when they realized I worked at the hospital–just charged ins. for the 80% and dropped the 20% or any deductibles or out of pocket.
Fern @ 104
Because whenever this sort of thing is mentioned the old shibboleth of “soc*al*sm” is trotted out and, god forbid, we can’t have that for anyone but corporations in this country.
The right was very quick to latch onto the horrors that Stalin inflicted on his country to paint anything that even had a whiff of soc*al*sm to it as a mean-spirited. dictatorial system that would crush everything in its path.
That’s something we really need to work on here. We have to educate, not only our fellow citizens, but our children on the strengths of standing together and demanding what is rightfully ours without withering in the face of unfounded, hysterical verbal assaults.
Of course, the powers that be won’t stop at verbal assaults if they don’t work but one day at a time.
Edited and released by Mods
Kathleen @ 108
I just worry about how she would tackle it. So far, everything I’ve heard leads me to believe that she’d just shovel more power and money to the insurance companies. That will make the situation worse, not better. She seems to continue to think the health insurance industry must be a part of the solution, when they are in fact the largest part of the problem.
I have many very serious problems with Clinton, and health care is one of them.
If tw3k is still here, try these if she already hasn’t.
http://www.nci.nih.gov/cancert…..ient/page6
http://www.mayoclinic.com/heal…..DSECTION=5
If she truly has had actual cervical cancer before, not just abnormal pap smears, she needs to have surgery now and should already have been told that. It really depends on the result of her pap smear and what stage her disease is. It is very important she have treatment as soon as she can. She should also look into whether her state Deaprtment of Public Health has any funding that might help with her expenses; there is a national program for screening which may help with some of her diagnostic care. I don’t know what state you are in, but I’ll look around the NIH and see what I can find.
I don’t know how I missed this discussion, Cspan makes me brain dead. I’m sorry.
jim oconnor @ 80
Jim, I’ve provided data.
Please provide your data supporting your hypothesis that organized medicine has opposed expansion of US med schools over the past thirty years.
Were such data to exist, two places to start looking would be the AAMC 9in D.C) and the AMA (in Chicago). I’m in a county clinic – I have better things to do than research unsupported opinions.
When you get back with data, I will find further consideration of your yet to be supported opinion to be a productive use of time.
Frankly, I’ve far better things to do.
Re Brisingamen’s experience: I had an arthroscopic procedure on my knee. Health insurance paid the whole thing (although there was a minor kerfluffle over the pathology bill). However, about six months later I get a phone call from some company wanting to confirm/verify certain things about the bill and my insurance coverage. They were looking for another party that my insurer could sue to recoup part of what they paid. It took me nearly a half hour to get the person who called to accept that (1) the knee injury was NOT due to a car accident which I “forget” I was in (really, I don’t drive, I don’t own a car, I have one friend who does drive me places and I’d have known if we were in an accident), (2) the knee injury was NOT due to an on-the-job accident, it was not covered by Workers’ Compensation, (3) I am single (no spouse’s policy to co-pay my bills) and (4) I’m old enough not to be covered on my parents’ insurance (at the time I was in my late 40s). The person kept coming back again and again and again to all these various points. I just kept on repeating over and over, I’m single, my parents don’t support me, I wasn’t in a car accident (really, I’d remember it), it wasn’t an occupational injury. Compared to other stories, not horrendous but still annoying and unnecessary. I just wonder how much Oxford paid for that call.
One thing that has bugged me to no end is how the insurance companies try to get out of paying for pathology tests on excised tissue by claiming that you didn’t have the tests done by an in-network lab… excuse me, but I didn’t arrange for the test to be done, I was still under anesthesia when the tissue was sent to the hospital’s own lab. Huh, I’m supposed to tell the surgeon before hand, please doc, send any excised tissue to so-and-so lab and we’ll wait a few days for the results (instead of an immediate report as in the case of the fatty tumor to confirm what it was). Right…
zennurse @ 40
An old friend tripped and fell in a restaurant parking lot and the insurance company not only wanted a picture of her shoes but wanted the shoes. Her attorney delivered the shoes in court.
I lied, it is the CDC, not the NIH.
This is a link to the national program, you can check each state’s program. each state has developed it a little differently so you need to check for how expanded they are in terms of services. Ours covered breast biopsies and cervical biopsies, but no treatment at all.
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/cance…..ntacts.asp
Kirk, do you know about this or use it?
Please share this link with anyone who might qualify, I feel terrible that I haven’t mentioned it before. If you are uninsured and need these services, please look into it.
zennurse @ 114
Thanks, I’ve passed those along as well.
She had cancer before and had it cut-out, she learned that has cancer again. She works in a restaurant so I really doubt she has any health care.
That’s about all I know in a nutshell.
A Hermit @ 66
A Canadian-style system would not work in the U.S. because it was thought up in Canada and must therefore be inferior.
U! S! A!
U! S! A!
kinmo @ 117
I was totally serious, but I love this response.
Kirk @ 115: Is this your data?
“This is really expensive.
Uh, I don’t know how to break it to you, but the AMA and the Association of American Medical Colleges have been the Feds to expand funding for medical education (med schools) and post-graduate medical education (residency – aka “specialty training”) for over two decades.
I should know – I was on the Board of the OSR (Organization of Student Reps) within the AAMC for three years in the 80’s.”
I call this opinion.
My youngest daughter had cardiac sarcoma (yep, heart cancer). Ya wanna see some medical bills, check out what they charge you for cardiac sarcoma treatments.
utahgirl
punaise @ 28
I comment fairly seldom, mostly lurk, but that is truly a superior pun.
PurpleGirl @116 — that’s almost identical to the questions on the form the company sent me! I’d forgotten about the Worker’s Comp part (my accident happened on a Sunday).
They were definitely looking for another party to take a chunk of cash from…sheesh.
kinmo @ 117
I was totally serious, but I love this response.tw3k @ 119
Do you mind telling me which state she’s in, I’m curious about what she might be able to get from them?
I have a suggestion, parallel to the proposition that US citizens be eligible for the same health benefits as members of Congress.
How about requiring any employee of an insurance company, from the level of claims workers to executives, to be allowed only the minimal insurance package their company offers, and nothing else. It seems only fair.
zennurse @ 122
I am totally serious too. Like they say, you can’t make this stuff up.
I’m familiar with the “out of network” ploy. When my newborn son needed hernia surgery we had to drive 300 miles to another major city to find a pediatric hospital that took our insurance. Everyone we talked to thought we were crazy. When we got the statement afterwards and did the math, we would have paid out of pocket about $4,300 just to stay in town. We spent about $130 in gas money.
Now my hubby needs spinal surgery and I’m not looking forward to ducking and weaving through the new policies the new company who took over the plan will neglect to tell us before the surgery. One note, the new company does not issue policy holders statement which show how much the provider charged and what the insurance co paid.
I have learned through experience that the most knowlegeable people about my plan are doctors office personel and collectors. If you call the plans customer service # they are dumb as sticks. It pays to schmooz the collector gals to get a feel for how the insurance plan pays and what procedures are covered.
Like when I had my baby I learned from a collector that my plan paid the hospital and testing labs in one bulk payment. This paid off when 6 mos afterwards a lab tried to bill me, and I nicely informed them how they would get payment.
zennurse @ 126
PA
MarkL @ 127
How about having members of congress and Insurance company executives live as though they had no insurance for a year?
I wonder if it would just be easier to move to Cuba, France, Canada or the U.K. to access a more humane health care system?
I haven’t had health insurance since I was 18, I’m now 41. I simply can not afford the premiums. I would have to take on a third job, just to pay the $900/month that I was quoted recently. I know I can’t add $10,000 to my annual debt load, and what’s the point, when the insurance scammers can turn around and refuse to pay out?
MarkL @ 127
Don’t laugh, but one of the Congressional proposals has been to permit the uninsured to enroll in the Federal Employee’s Health Benefit program.
But there’s a catch — you’d still have to pay premiums. If you can afford the top of the line offerings, you’d get what your Congressman has…but if you can’t you’d be stuck with the lower cost, higher deductibles most Federal employees have…
New post upstairs
I have a friend who works in a hospital pharmacy … she said there is an infamous doctor who orders huge amounts of meds for someone who is very near death, knowing that patient will never take it all. I’m not sure how the Dr. benefits on this…maybe he is a part owner of the hospital.
tw3k @ 130
No treatment funds but there is one helpful link which may help her move forward.
http://www.dsf.health.state.pa…..vradA4CC0=|
I wish her all the best, she must be freaked. I’ts important that she continue getting care and not freeze because of money. Hospitals have free care, it looks like there are at least a few resources for free or sliding fee clinics.
tw3k at 119 says-”Thanks, I’ve passed those along as well.
She had cancer before and had it cut-out, she learned that has cancer again. She works in a restaurant so I really doubt she has any health care.
That’s about all I know in a nutshell.”
i had surgery for cervical cancer and it was outpatient….so bill wasn’t so high…….
years later i’m ok, just had a checkup for it, i was lucky, test negative……tell her not to worry, it will work out………tell her to read up on it, to ease her mind…….high cure rate.
dipper @ 136
Could be
kickbacksincentives from the pharma company.scarecrow @ 23
I’d volunteer for that, but I suspect I’d have to quit my (paying) job to keep up with the volume!
tw3k–depending on what kind of cervical cancer she has, she was probably told it could reoccur, at least i was………and to get yearly pap exams because of it…….so, from a young age i did…….every year i hold my breath, but every year i also know that it has a high cure rate……IF i get checked yearly………
unless it has gone into the uterus or surrounding tissue, which would be removed if it has, they just snip off the end of your cervix, it grows back……..
i know of one person who had a hysterectomy from it, it had spread, and though she had to have a hysterectomy and wanted kids, she was fine……she didn’t have to have chemo……all the others i know of are cancer free years later………and healthy and fine……including me.
Ann in AZ @ 103
I appreciate your concern. Having dealth with this for 14 years now I am very aware of what my coverage is and I am very active in talking with my doctors to make sure I get the treatement I need. If I have to fight with the insurance company to make sure I get it, that’s part of the process.
I’ve been at both ends of this. 1984 – back surgery, no choice, can’t walk – no job, no insurance. Doctor persuaded hospital to let me in. Ekvkentually the hosp got paid, but the lenght of time it took ruined my up-til-then sterling credit.
fast forward 1996 – double pneumonia, complications, kidney and pulmonary specialists, 2 wks in hosp overall, 5 dys of those in icu basically unconscious.
Hubby had great coverage – are you ready? 100% coverage for hospital.
We got the “not a bill” statements, and gasped at what we might have had to pay. Paid nothing, as I recall. or very, very little.
Now, neither of our plans covers anything 100%, we’re 10 yrs older, and wonder how ruined we will be next time one of us is hospitalized (hubby has had 3 hospitalizations, 2 for surger, and he was YOUNG then!)(well, actually, he’s probably healthier now).
On and on the stories go.
Jane – keep kicking ass. I don’t know how a not-very-well-educated person manages either.
(Oh, hubby’s most recent outpatient back procedrue — double billed a major charge. He caught it; what if he hadn’t noticed?)
My brother woke up with severe chest pain, called 911, was brought into the emergency room on a guerney and straight through to an EKG to see if he was having a heart attack. He was finally diagnosed with a burst appendix for which he had to have emergency surgery. While he was recuperating from that, he got the bill for the EKG… turned down by his full insurance coverage as “not medically necessary” of course!
One simple point:
Clinton has said she wants to include the insurance companies in her “new” health care plan.
John Edwards is saying that he wants them OUT OF the plan. Completely.
zennurse @ 118
Wow zennurse – thank you.
Never knew of this option until this moment – thanks.
Here in SF (and before in Santa Clara and at UCLA) there are local work-arounds…but this is a life-saver.
I’ll keep this and also will post on one of the national “street medic” lists (action medical at yahoo groups…)
Again, thank you.
Kathleen @ 132
Sorry to disappoint – but in Canada you would have to be a citizen or a permanent resident to be eligible for services.
jim oconnor @ 122
When you have mastered the definitions of “fact” vs “opinion”, please get back to me.
In the meantime, the facts I describe are in the minutes of the Association of American Medical Colleges Board Meetings and in the meetings of the Council on Teaching Hospitals (COTH) of the AAMC.
A dictionary will probably help you there, also.
Medicare D is worse. Even if you take the time to figure the best plan, the insurance companies change the coverage in midyear when you can’t do anything about it.
whenwego @ 53
You know, it doesn’t quite work that way when you’re dealing with a catastrophic illnes. You are in and out of the hospital, you have tests and doctors you never even see or know the name of who are involved in conducting and reviewing those tests at various stages or who participate in surgeries and you never see. The tests, though in the same facility, are often done by other incorporated entities, and the doctors and companies may or may not be “in network.” There is no box that you can anywhere that says “only give me in-network providers.” And even if there was, it doesn’t stop the insurance company from saying that they don’t think you need something that your doctors do.
I’m going to guess you’ve never had cancer, huh?
Tanbark @ 145
That settles it for me – Edwards 08!
reef the dog @ 13
A dead cat and a string would have been cheaper.
dipper @ 136
Big Pharma now pays kickbacks (to docs who will accept them) for “high volume” prescribers.
Totally unethical – and should be outlawed.
According to one media blurb (I haven’t been able to find a study attached, so this may be apocryphal) my specialty – psychiatry – takes the most in kickbacks.
Blergh. Never have. Never would. Never will.
I’m not certain if the study results were per MD or for the entire specialty.
In (public health) psychiatry the majority of patients have chronic incurable conditions responsive to chronic RX for symptom relief – an ideal “profit center” for Pig Pharma.
Those patients depend on their docs to protect hem, not to collaborate with the megacorps.
Blergh.
And, where are the leaderless, spineless, gutless, clueless democrats on this issue? They should be hammering the repukes on health care! cleve
I worked 11 years as a nurse for various insurance companies doing Utilization Review, Case Management and Medical Claims review (NO I did not deny anything – Doctors can only deny on medical review)
In 1995 my 13 yr old son was hit by a chevy blazer while riding is bike. He was lifeflighted to the trauma hospital and spent 15 days inpatient. He had three insurance plans who covered him AND I worked for the very company he had his basic medical insurance. The total was $48,000. The first plan was my homeowners who paid out of my personal injury policy – that $15K was gone by 4pm on the first day. My son was cited as the cause for the accident so my medical became second and then the drivers insurance became the third.
I had a file folder, all the different providers had their own folder, stapled with each bill was the EOB (Explanation of benefits) and all the various correspondence. This eventually grew into two bankers boxes. I was working with the claim supervisor at my own employer to finally have all the various claims resolved. The last bill was finally resolved 15 months after his accident. While I was going through the divorce from hell and the Subrogation was outsourced to a nasty organization who hounded me monthly asking recoup of the medical expenses because I was suing the driver (No I could not, my son was cited as the cause). I eventually had to contact an attorney to get Subrogation off my butt, they would not take my word and the documentation of the country sheriff that there would be NO basis for legal action.
If you are having an issue with an insurance company, contact the DOI (Department of Insurance) of the state where you received care. They will get on the insurance companies butt to resolve it. No insurance company wants to hear from the DOI because they can revoke their license to cover residents in that state.
Write appeal letters in the time frame. Once you appeal, it goes to another level of review and also can work with the DOI to get it resolved.
Jane:
I didn’t read the comments, so apologize if this is redundant.
Two resources that everyone has when hospitalized are important to know about and to use.
One is called the patient advocate or patient representative. This person can take billing/charges concerns to the right person. When you are hospitalized, this person can, in real time, intercede on your behalf if you have any quality or personality concerns about any employee, physician or contracted worker.
The second is a nurse or social worker assigned to you as a case manager. If one is not assigned to you, you can request one. This person is very important to work with, as she knows how your plan works, what it pays, doesn’t pay, and work-arounds in the way of appeals and claims denial procedures. She can also help you to negotiate your out of pocket expenses directly with the hospital. Ask about reduced rates, reduced therapy and diagnostic testing fees, reduced anything and everything. If you are a self-pay patient (non-insured) ask about a discounted bill that matches what the lowest insurance contract rate is (for example a Blue Cross or United Health contract with the hospital). A few hospitals here and there will also allow you to work off some or all of your bill, but as far as I know, this is never advertised, so ask. Don’t confuse an insurance company’s case managers with the hospital’s case managers. They work for different organizations, and only the hospital based case manager can advocate on your behalf directly with the hospital.
Email me with questions, and I’ll answer as I can.
I’m sorry that you are having to deal with this. I have written many, many posts about how patients need to recover and recuperate and instead, are being unduly stressed with financially assaults by the very organizations and their proxies that should be caring for them. But I was just a nurse, and nurses aren’t considered quite legitimate in having a voice that means much of anything. Maybe someday….
djinn @ 102
The hallmark of Hillary’s proposals is that she’ll work within existing structures and expectations, just do it better. That’s not good enough for 2008. The nominee needs to be someone prepared to tear down those structures and rebuild them.
Kathleen @ 132
Yes. Check your family tree for any European ancestors who might be able to bestow citizenship upon you.
We South Africans have a kinda both-ways system.
Medical Aid (Insurance ) is offered as a benefit by most employers who pay half the premium.The insurers I have dealt with mostly pay out 100% of bills and I pretty easy to deal with.
Then, everyone is entitled to use State hospitals or clinics. They are free but if you have an income, you pay a nominal amount. I paid 50c for a hospital visit as a student.
More recently, I saw my local State GP, had an EKG & blood tests and a small procedure and all medications provided – for R180. (less than $30).
OTOH, I had to have two teeth extracted under general anaesthetic. I was in the private clinic for about 3 hours and it cost me R12000.
(about $2000). So, our medical stuff, like so much else here, is either First World, excellent quality but unavailable to most people or Third World adequate at best, but free.
I’m a medical social worker. One of the more dehumanizing aspects of our health care system is the paperwork. When you are sick, dying, elderly, facing a chronic illness you just don’t have the stamina to deal with the “system.” I remember many many years ago having a patient who decided she was ready for hospice services. There was a lot of Medicare paperwork to enroll her for hospice benefits. She told us “I never knew dying required so much paperwork.” She had a sense of humor about her and a support team ready to help her with all of it. Yet most do not have support…. Give me single payor and simplified paperwork. Taxes should be harder than medical bills but I don’t think so.
jane, my 82 yrold uncle has/had colon and liver cancer…..still is fighting the liver cancer…….chemo every week……..this week he is in the hospital, which is where i have been, explaining to him that he’s not dead yet……..he didn’t eat or drink for three days, don’t know why, he fell, we know that, bump on his head, he blacked out for some reason……he’s bouncing back…doesn’t know what happened to him, neither do we…very healthy dude…….
my dad has been handling his medical bills for the past year…….he is a retired corporate accountant, he said he doesn’t know how people manuever the system…….he spends hours going over uncle sonny’s stuff………and is constantly copying and mailing things back to them.
his chemo is 12,000 a week…..medicare and whatever insurance you get from the guggenheim institute……been doing it for about a year. he’s one tough old bird…….never drank, eats well, holistic before there was a word for it and is a brainiac……..my favorite relative……used to buy me art kits and history books my whole life……..example-when i was learning about medieval times, he bought me a caligraphy set………
he’s one of those genius people who can’t tie his own shoes, he NEVER would have been able to handle the insurance/medical hoops……he has no clue about it, dad handles it for him………dad, the fdr democrat, is incensed at the health care system in this united states of america……….
Jane -
I hope you are still checking this thread. I can attest to your medical bills from my own. I joined a support group of people with life threatening illnesses and listened to the terrible stress on family members and the person fighting an illness. Ironically, stress is a major factor in reducing the immune system. I know of nothing that causes greater stress than the rip-off bills while you are still paying for “full coverage” to your insurance company.
Reading this post reminds me what a privilege it is to be a citizen of a truly civilised country, the UK. A young friend of mine is going through cancer treatment at the moment. That is bad enough in itself. But at least she doesn’t even have to think about the cost.
On top of the stress illness brings,to have to be worrying all the time whether someone in an office somewhere with a job description to minimise payouts might be trying to make sure you pay as much as possible for the treatment is, from where I sit, simply unacceptable.
This month is the last month of my mother’s insurance after which she must be completely removed from nursing home attention for a period of six months (paying the premium all the while) before she will be allowed to be re-admitted to nursing facilities for another twelve months of insured coverage, then another six months removed from any nursing attention.
This is the most outrageously inexcusable “contract” that forbids continuation of nursing services and requires the patient to be hung out to die without adequate services being provided. It is a criminal contract in that withholding medical services is required to continue the contract that withholding threatening the fragile health of the patient with dire or deadly consequenses.
The lawyers who write such contracts are criminally equivalent to any Ted Bundy as are those who enforce the contracts. Whole “professions” are involved and are below contempt for their disregard for human beings. It is too bad the prisons are not filled with their like for the lives that are lost at their hands.
No, America is not a civilized place, rather the opposite holds true.
Since Tony Snow announced he was leaving due to financial reasons last week I have been waiting for someone, anyone, to ask him if the financial strain was due to the costs of his cancer treatments. Or maybe ask him since he is “fully insured”, how much his treatment has cost him. The guy was making 168K and couldn’t make ends meet.
Well, its hardly on a par with your story, but I’m still fighting over a $200.00 visit at the local Childrens’ Hospital with my 14 year old who broke a thumb in a pop warner game last October. We were sent to the Orthopedic by his Primary Care Doc, and the Ortho’s office told us no appointments were available in the clinic, but they had office hours at the Hospital, and we could have an appointment the following day. We did that, the PCP’s diagnosis of a fracture was confirmed and a cast was applied. Health Not (er, I mean Net) denied the claim as unauthorized Surgery. My appeal letter sent in January (politely asking when the application of a cast became regarded as a surgery) was met with an apparently automation-generated response promising resolution in 30 to 60 days. Six months later, the provider sent me an odd letter, filled with non-sequitur and one very useful line confirming that “no surgery was performed.” That letter and a cover letter went back to the carrier over a month ago. The response? A near verbatim replay of the first letter from the carrier, again promising a quick resolution. Good Grief.
Too many people believe that they’re adequately covered just because they’ve never tested the system.
Three years ago I had brain surgery while covered under what I thought was terribly expensive COBRA ($750/month for 2 people). When our eligibility for that expired, my husband and I were both deemed uninsurable.
Now we’re both covered under CoverColorado, a state subsidized system. We pay nearly $1000./month, and have to read every EOB and fight back. I’ve had spinal surgery this year with bills approaching $200,000. My out-of-pocket max of $4000. seems nearly irrelevant, since I get frequent statements of “out of network”,” not medically necessary,” or just plain wrong coverage determinations. He has an out-of-pocket max of $15K, and when we offered to pay cash at5 the emergency room to get the cash discount, we were told that we couldn’t do that. He actually paid more last year because he was insured.
Anyway, the point of this is that I am especially sensitive to the whole pre-authorization idea, and did my best before surgery, but that wasn’t enough.
The other point is that this is all related to retirement protection. We worked very hard to save for retirement, and without medical insurance we could lose it all. It’s NOT FAIR.
If the reason for an insurance pool is to spread the risk, I don’t like the idea that after paying my share for 40 years, I can be thrown out of the pool.
Oh, well… 4 years ’til Medicare.
I hate to see these things happening to you and everyone else, Jane.
Thanks for all you do.
‘gad! Oh well, just wait till Hillary gets elected. That will seal the deal. We will have finally arrived at the 9th circle of biomedical hell.
Once all was added together, she would have been better off if she had taken all those premiums and dumped the cash into T-bills instead of an insurance policy.
Bingo.
QuakerGirl @ 161
Yep, it really is. I know people who just withdraw from life, can’t deal with the bureaucracy and the hounding, and the disease just starts to eat them up. It’s toxic in the extreme.
Judy_B @ 166
bingo
Arnie @ 163
Whenever I think I’ve heard it all….
I spent 11 years taking care of my elderly mother; she had Medicare and United Healthcare Supplemental through AARP. The last 6 months of her life she was on hospice care. She died at home in December. She had diabetes and it ultimately killed her, all the complications and her final illness developed as a result of that. All the bills were covered. I haven’t had to fight with any insurance companies or hospitals — and I don’t know why not, though God knows I’m grateful, because if I had had to fight insurance companies AND care for her the stress would probably have killed me. It seems entirely random whose claims get denied and whose not.
We are fully insured on my job. 2 months ago I met a co-worker I see occasionally. He’s in his early 40’s, 2 kids, 39 year old wife with terminal lung cancer. As he was telling me this I looked down at the floor, trying to think of something comforting to say. I noticed he was wearing an orthopedic support boot. We don’t have desk jobs. He’s a telephone lineman. Torn ligaments in his ankle. “John, what the hell are you doing working with a bad ankle?” Since he has direct deposit, he can’t afford to go out. One of Verizon’s little tricks if you go out sick when you have direct deposit is to screw up the processing of your paycheck. If the absence is ok’d at all. We’re at the point where the first try is an almost automatic denial. (Met Life is our administrator). It takes about 4 weeks to change our check routing. And they’ll screw that up too.
I’m going to retire to a country where the health care is decent.
This is just awful.
Somehow someone in the public eye has to stand up and tell the truth about insurance. First- It is not a product that the market can improve on. A manufactured product can be innovated, manufactured differently, use different materials, machinery, labor, and on and on to improve that product. But an insurance policy is nothing more than a promise to pay. Therefore the free market cannot make it better than it is and therefore there is no reason to keep it in the free market. Especially since the purpose of an insurance company is to pay its stockholders-not its claims. Once everyone realizes this, there can be no argument against a single payer plan. Then these horror stories everyone has will go away.
ccmask @ 24
Over at
http://www.WashingtonMonthly.com
Kevin Drum et al have been discussing health care. It really inspires people to write some amazing stories, just like the ones in this thread.
They also discuss ways to change the system and had a guest book author in to ignite the discussion.
One question was about whether doctors’ income should become ONLY salaried, to prevent them from manipulating the actual health care to increase their incomes.
Ask yourself the same…if we had a universal single-payer insurance system, who would decide how much a doctor should be paid? Since we’re so used to the “free market” idea of competition it isn’t so easy to think of other good ways to assign wealth and feel good about it.
Some of your stories are not just incredible but absolutely barbaric. What are you going to do about it? If I were you, I would trust Kucinic’s approach – at least he should know since his partner is from the UK.
djinn @ 102
Is she referring to the health care system that exists or the political/corporate system which prevents change?
If she becomes “I’m not as scary as Edwards.”, then Bai will have been right, that at least one Dem Hillary has no big idea or vision.
So here is what we do. Send your bill to your congress-person and then ask them to pay the rest of your “not covered” expenses. Also ask them if they have to pay any “not covered” expenses (I don’t believe they do). Tell them to change the system or you will change their job (ie: voted out of congress). Enough of this BS, time for action!!
Kathleen @ 108
I heard it said she is committed to waiting until her second term to even begin work on it.
I suppose that should be verified.
I know this is of little comfort to anyone who is currently sick and without insurance, but as a former Medicaid employee I FIRMLY believe that we will have nationalized health care in our country in a few years.
I had to work with hospital surveys that show the profit margins for hospitals (i.e. the millions in PROFITS that the non-profit designated hospitals- which means they don’t pay taxes to their communities- make). It’s ridiculous! The only reason that the “costs” of health care continue to increase the way they do is because someone is getting rich. It costs more to pay big salaries to those at the top of the chain of command. Medicine in the U.S. is no longer about helping fellow human beings, it’s about the almighty dollar.
All the people that work for Medicare and state Medicaid programs are fully equipped to run a nationalized health system in the U.S.
Everyone needs to stand up and DEMAND a new system. There is power in our numbers and our collective voices!
You all have my sympathy.
Go to a single-payer system, as we have here in Canada. A more populist issue you surely cannot find. This affects all who are not millionaires.
I don’t worry about medical bills, just prescriptions. Doctor’s fees I never see. I know that when I get sick I won’t have to wrestle with collections agencies…for medical bills, at least.
Your system isn’t very compassionate. Please reclaim your government…I know you’re trying…but it doesn’t seem to act for the benefit of all anymore.
Feel free to slag Canada now. I’d still rather be here, and I can take it.
Peace.
We need a new name for insurance. Why not call it the twilight zone? I pay 772 a month for well evidently nothing. Everytime there is the slightest claim, the authorization wasn’t sent in, medical reason code was left off and so it was denied, the referral center says they just handle the paper, the doctor says the insurance does not cover it, the insurance says they do cover and all I need is a verbal from the dr, and on and on and on. Around and around, you try to figure out which one is lying the largest. For example,it took me 6 months and 70 phone calls to clear up one weekend emergency( 13 staples in scalp). Now you would think such a simple thing would be covered pd no problem but no , they had to drag it out for 6 months. I have recently changed doctors because the pcp won’t refer me to spec*al*st for something he admits he can’t do. I think of the years I have paid for this and wonder who is really better off, being ‘insured’ or not at all. Well probably not at all is worse but being insured is torture you are forced to pay for.
~~~ModNote: Edited for content to clear filters.~~~
zennurse @ 12
I saw this all the time with my mom and dad. It’s not in their nature to question authority. And “Blue Cross” was to them a brand they could trust…they remember “Blue Cross” from its nonprofit days a long, long time ago. So if BC/BS denied coverage, my dad just trusted they were right and dutifully paid the bills that were sent to him.
It wasn’t ’till I moved back here to take care of him full time that I saw the enormity of bills he was paying (with no income at all other than Social Security!!!!) that he didn’t need to pay. They count on that. They count on people not fighting back, not having time to spend hours and hours on hold, etc.
I worked really hard to intercept my dad’s mail after I moved up here, but my dad was a proud man who never fully ceded control to me…but the last six months or so, the enormity of worry and stress he experienced because of erroneous bills was heartbreaking.
(And don’t get me started about AARP’s insurance policies…the saddest memory I have of my dad is when he realized, just a few months before his death, that the AARP life insurance policy that he thought he had and that he had dutifully paid premiums for for over a decade had actually become null and void when he turned 80. AARP kept taking monthly deductions from his checking account so he thought the policy was still in place, but they never notified him that he needed to convert his term life policy to a whole life policy. So he died knowing all those premiums to AARP went down the drain, and he had no life insurance and that his kids would have to pay for his burial because he didn’t understand the fine print of his policy. I hate AARP for that…I just assumed that they’d be advocates for seniors and would try to help seniors understand in plain and clear terms what they’re paying for!)
This whole experience has actually made me consider going into a field that advocates for senior citizens…my heart breaks thinking about so many people who are growing old alone and have no one to help them navigate our confusing and downright cruel health care/elder care system in this country.
What we need to do *the day after* single-payer National Health Care goes into effect is get the DOJ to start a massive RICO prosecution of the companies and their executives who ran the for-profit health insurance industry. “Turn over a couple of rocks” and you’ll have enough to bankrupt and put the lot of them in prison for a long, long time.
I am late to this comment thread. Jane, you are a sterling warrior goddess and I love and admire you immensely.
Finding out about your insurance troubles makes me want to swear.
When are we going to wake up in this country? Good grief.
Steve-AR @ 30
Depending on the state, complaints to the state insurance comission can be a real threat (speaking as ex-compliance staff for an insurer. It can get attention from the compliance staff, who tend to be more sympathetic than the line staff (who mostly have no discretion anyway. They’re just following the rulebook.)
It seems that in this fucked-up system there are “good” and “bad” diseases to have as far as medical coverage.
In my wife’s case, End Stage Renal Disease was super in terms of complete coverage of bills. In the case of cancer, there seem to be big holes in coverage. You have to be careful which disease you get.
When my mom was in the throes of what became her final illness, we emptied the contents of her checking account. She, while earning some very good money in her late 70’s as webmaster for some astrology groups (she had some few years earlier stubbornly taught herself HTML so she do her own site) converted all checks to cash, which she kept in her room at my sister’s.
When the hospital which had robbed her of months, perhaps years more of life, spoke to me about settling the co-pay portion of her bill as they busily shuffled her over to a ’skilled nursing’ facility (translation: go away and die and free up one of our beds) I looked the billing clerk in the eye and said she had nothing, was destitute. No, we were not responsible for her bills (and had avoided signing anything that said so.)
Eat it, bastards. You, and Dr. Death, who’s a whole other story.
Mom insisted we sign a DNR order because she was adamant about not being hooked up to machines after repeated attempts to resuscitate, so the hospital interpreted that as permission to dose her, without informing us, with very large amounts of morphine to speed up her shuffling off the mortal coil, and to keep her immobile, so she wouldn’t need much attention. It was only when she was coming off the morphine at the skilled nursing facility that we realized what they’d done.
My mother, who died in 1991,was fully insured-both Medicare and excellent BC/BS. She never used any doctor or service that was not “preferred provider.” It took a full year to resolve her bills. The stack was about 2 feet high. In the end, all were paid by her insurance. At the time, I worked for a member of Congress. I pointed out to him that this was a very expensive way to do medical care. While he agreed with me, nothing changes.
Over a year after her death, I got yet another bill. My attorney pointed out that we had closed probate and that the provider was SOL.
It’s not just the insurance companies. We conceived our second child (middle child) between coverages, so we had no insurance for his birth. We were, we thought, right on top of expenses.
My wife went into labor in the afternoon, so we spent the night in a birthing room. My son was born at 1:30 am. At 6:30 we were still in the delivery room, exhausted, begging to be able to go to a hospital room and relax. We were told, repeatedly, that “your room is not ready.”
Finally, about 7 am, we got to move to a room.
Imagine our surprise when the University of Michigan sent us a bill for that night for both a hospital room and the delivery room.
We were told that it was standard procedure to keep a hospital room ready when parents were in the delivery room, so we had to pay for both.
No one cared to hear that we had been repeatedly told that there was no hospital room ready for us.
A year later, after the University of Michigan hospital sicced a credit agency after us, we had to pay a lot of money for the room that was “not ready” for us.
Oh, and as far as the American Medical Association goes, read this horror story: http://splendid.backpackit.com/pub/689592 – in last year’s election the AMA mailed out postcards claiming that the Phillips family – Westboro Baptist Church, demonstrators at dead soldiers’ funerlas – were “peace activists.” Really.
Christy, have you printed the Micheal Moore Sicko card and presented it to the insurance company ? I’ve read of a number of instances where the sight of it caused insurance company reversals in hours or days.