"How two friends died when they couldn't pay for health care"

[think]

Worth reading in it's entirety.

How two friends died when they couldn't pay for health care

Martha Musgrove - April 22nd 2015

Am I the only person in South Florida who has known people who died because they couldn't afford health care? I doubt it, but we don't share their stories, and that anonymity makes it all too easy for our elected officials in Tallahassee to detach the reality of pain, suffering and death from the policy and budget decisions they make about health care.


So, Florida's health care "safety net" remains frightfully frayed.

My friends, Evelyn and Susan, worked hard well into their 50s. Evelyn, a secretary, was married, divorced and had a son. For several years, she and her son were carried on her ex-husband's health insurance.

When that coverage ceased, she found a job that included health insurance benefits. The "perk" vanished with her wages when she was laid off. When she developed a persistent cough, she consulted a doctor who ordered an MRI. Friends rallied and raised the $1,000 needed to pay for it. ("Private pay" patients don't get insurance-network discounts). The verdict: early-stage lung cancer — curable, if treated.

With no insurance, Evelyn couldn't find a "provider" willing to treat her as a charity case. She had made too much money working during the previous year to qualify for Medicaid or Palm Beach County's tax-supported health care program...

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/commentary/fl-mmcol-oped0423-20150422-column.html

Martha Musgrove is a veteran journalist formerly with The Miami Herald and Cox Newspapers. [e-mail]

[zazen]

1. single payer, single payer, single payer . . . this happens all too often

[Sherman A1]

2. Precisely

[edhopper]

3. Rick Scott killed them

by blocking Medicaid expansion.

[NCjack]

4. My wife lost a good friend when she exceeded her insurance

company's limit. They cut her off in the middle of her struggle to fight cancer to live. Family and friends did not have enough money to help, and within 2 months of being cut-off, she died. She was 40 yrs old and had a daughter struggling to pay for college.