Check in HERE if you know of someone who has died because he/she could not afford health care.

[lapislzi]

Please post your stories, or just check in.

My mother would be alive today if she had had access to health care. She was destitute and dying before she qualified for Medicaid. She died from a form of cancer that's highly curable if caught early.

[hobbit709]

1. Several people in the past year

My wife, Donna, some good friends of mine. Another friend needs a hip replacement but she hasn't met the Medicare deductible and she can't afford to meet it.

[lapislzi]

7. I am sorry for your loss.

:hug:

[ThomWV]

2. I have known two people who were sent home to die when treatment was available

Both relatively young single men, neither with a dime of insurance, both soon dead.

[rurallib]

3. Had insurance, but high deductible delayed trip to doctor

for a fast developing disease.
Adult luekemia. BIL's brother. 55 years old. Delayed trip to doc thinking it was a cold or flu. By the time he was drug in the disease was past any stopping. He died a few days later.
I give white cells for people like this. Have heard many have been helped tremendously. Think he could have been had he gone early on.

[mucifer]

4. I'm a hospice nurse. We get patients who were diagnosed too late for treatments

that would be effective. This is because they didn't have good insurance to feel they could afford going to doctors.

We have indigent funds to cover some people without insurance. But, we are a small non-profit hospice.

[eShirl]

15. hospice nurses have my respect and awe

:hug:

[lapislzi]

16. Hear, hear

The compassion that the nurses showed to my parents and me while my mother was dying was both astonishing and awe-inspiring. One of them held my father's hand and said "let her go," with tears in her eyes. I'll never forget that.

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Many over decades of time

Once upon a time, there was a plauge that the Insurance companies pretended did not exist, for years of constant death.

[abluelady]

6. Young Cousin

It happened many years ago--a bleeding ulcer. Nobody should die from a bleeding ulcer. She had no insurance. It went too far. 30 years old.

[Barack_America]

8. My uncle. And my mother is in FL with no insurance.

I worry every day that she'll be next.

My father has qualified for Medicaid, thank God.

[Blue State Blues]

9. Checking in. N/T

[L0oniX]

10. My best and longest known friend died because he could not afford health insurance or health care.

I knew him since I was 4 years old. We were friends for over 50 years. We learned a lot of things together. We went to the same schools, built tree shacks, built rafts, built igloos, damned up creeks, owned a jet boat, played guitars in bands, were in business together. I introduced him to the girl he later married and was his best man. We owned and ran The Who Quadrophenia sound system. I donated one of those Mavis audio mixer desks to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where it sits to this today as part of the Bob Heil exhibit.



Before he died he told me how he had wished he had health insurance. I loved him like a brother. His name is Warren Dyke.

[slackmaster]

11. I don't, but I have known several who died because they didn't seek health care that they could have

...had at little or no cost out of pocket.

[lapislzi]

13. Would you care to elaborate?

I don't understand.

[slackmaster]

17. I'm thinking of veterans who were qualified for full benefits but refused to see a doctor

I've known a few of those who died in their 50s from treatable or preventable conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and colon cancer.

[lapislzi]

23. Well, we can't legislate against idiocy

any more than we can legislate morality. My dad was a WWII vet who refused to use the VA's services. He would glower suspiciously at me every time I raised the issue and and growl that he didn't want the military to know any more about him than it already did. Fortunately for him, managed to acquire excellent insurance AFTER my mom passed (not so lucky for her :() that he kept until he retired.

Still, the actions of idiots are insufficient grounds to deny the rest of us access to the care we need. It's a straw man argument.

[blueworld]

12. I'm sorry for your loss & for everyone else who has been victimized

My mother died in 1989 at age 64 & was denied a pacemaker that would have probably saved her life, and at least improved her quality of life because she wasn't "worth" the expense, as illustrated by the family interviewed on CNN recently. We couldn't afford the extra money and communities don't contribute to save older women.

The doctors lied to me at first saying the pacemaker wouldn't work for her problem, however I found out later the real reason from the ICU nurses, God bless them. Ironically, Cheney has a pacemaker for the same reason my mom needed one. There's a waste of money.

I also found out later why my mom developed bleeding ulcers while she was in the ICU for 1 1/2 months: it was the specific combination of drugs she was given, and the doctors KNEW that also at the time & didn't tell me. They just kept scheduling transfusions. I still can cry just thinking of it.

Like I said, thank God for the nurses. One snuck into the room to tell me & my mom not to go ahead with one of the more dangerous tests that had been scheduled & outlined the reasons...after my mom died, she sat out in the hallway with me & we cried together. She cried with me. I won't ever forget her.

But the doctors who suck up money & perks from Big Pharma get the big bucks while the nurses get scorn, abuse & bedpans.

[spinbaby]

14. I think nearly everyone knows someone

I knew the man who didn't call 911 when he had chest pains because he thought he couldn't afford the ambulance ride. He died driving himself to the hospital. Also, I knew a woman who was taking anti-acids for persistant stomach pain because she couldn't afford the scan that would have diagnosed pancreatic cancer. Now both of these people probably would have died anyway, but they both also definitely delayed medical care for insurance reasons.

[davsand]

18. He waited at home for a few days to die. Then his brother dragged him to the ER.

That way, he got to die in the ER waiting room instead.

He had no insurance and worked full time retail for a Mom and Pop store. Heart disease can be managed, however he never got to find that out because he couldn't afford treatment.

RIP, Brian.



Laura

[jfkraus]

19. My brother died of kidney cancer

He was a semi-employed carpenter with no insurance. He developed strong abdominal pains. It took three visits and four months before the emergency room would perform a good exam including a simple x-ray. By then, the tumor on his kidney was the size of a softball. He we dead six months later.

[intheflow]

20. My dearest friend Deb Sanchez, who was profiled in Molly Ivans' book

"Bushwhacked" for her work to get the SuperFund site in her neighborhood cleaned up. Growing up in her toxic neighborhood was no doubt a strong factor in her cancer development. She'd just started a new job working as a cancer hospice chaplain when she was diagnosed, working too few hours to be eligible for the hospice's insurance plan. The world is much less bright with her gone. :(

[lapislzi]

22. That is a horrible, horrible irony

I'm sorry for your loss.

[Froward69]

21. more than 5

tenants and friends.
as for myself, my father was persuaded by an Insurance company, to change his long term care insurance to accidental death. (for an 80 year old man.) I am still paying for it 4 years on. my appendix two years ago is nearly bankrupting me now. as MY insurance Company refused payment because I went to the WRONG Emergency room. (had I waited for another hour/gone across town to theirs. I would be dead.)

[SOS]

24. Two friends died of alcoholism

Both had insurance, but addiction treatment was not covered.

[juno jones]

25. The person I know didn't die

But she broke her arm in a town with no public hospital and only had it set close to a week later when she was finally brought to a large city with a charity hospital by someone who had a car worthy of making the trip.

First, do no harm, yeah, right.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. Andy, those of us who are long members knew ANDY

Oh and as a red cross medic in TJ I heard way too many stories, including a woman who was diabetic who regularly came to OUR ER since she fell through the Cracks in San Diego. You have no idea how many times we tried to bring her out of the cracks.

And there were many other stories like that.

[lapislzi]

27. Andy. n/t

[roguevalley]

28. my sister-in-law's wonderful brother, Dennis. He left a nineteen

year old wife eight months pregnant.