Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers.
My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.
My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits.
Countless hours searching for non-exchange plans have uncovered nothing that compares well with my existing coverage. But the greatest source of frustration is Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health-insurance exchange and, by some reports, one of the best such exchanges in the country. After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don’t have a clue how to best proceed.
Two things have been essential in my fight to survive stage-4 cancer. The first are doctors and health teams in California and Texas: at the medical center of the University of California, San Diego, and its Moores Cancer Center; Stanford University’s Cancer Institute; and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The second element essential to my fight is a United Healthcare PPO (preferred provider organization) health-insurance policy.
Another one of those “junk” policies, I guess. More at the WSJ
Bonus Update – Obama smears this cancer victim.
United Healthcare was my mom’s medical coverage up until her death (suicide) after her strokes were compounded by thyroid cancer.
The medical group was excellent.
The coverage was, too.
She almost always took longer than the standard short doctor visit but was never scolded about it.
She came in with a list of problems that the doctor went through with her patiently and kindly.
Physical therapy was ongoing at no cost to her.
I fully understand this woman’s angst at losing this company’s coverage.
But, at least she’ll have contraception and pediatrics, so….
I wish wingnuts would be little bit curious and skeptical about the crap they hear from right wing media and do just a little research….
The Real Reason That The Cancer Patient Writing In Today’s Wall Street Journal Lost Her Insurance
“…Her insurer, United Healthcare, is pulling out of the individual health care market, forcing Sundby to find new coverage in California’s health care exchange.
But the plans available through Cover California don’t offer in-network coverage for all of the care Sundby needs. As a result, she has to choose between her two health care providers if she wishes to remain in-network. “Stanford has kept me alive—but UCSD has provided emergency and local treatment support during wretched periods of this disease, and it is where my primary-care doctors are,” she writes:
What happened to the president’s promise, “You can keep your health plan”? Or to the promise that “You can keep your doctor”? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician.
But Sundby shouldn’t blame reform — United Healthcare dropped her coverage because they’ve struggled to compete in California’s individual health care market for years and didn’t want to pay for sicker patients like Sundby…”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/04/2881581/wall-street-journal-horror-story-cancer-patient-losing-doctors-wrong/
@This one:
Millions of people are losing their health care completely, or seeing their premiums go up three, four, five times the rate they are now, and yet, you continue to support Obamascare. Are you so in the tank for Socialism that you only know how to parrot the Socialists?
So explain to me; why does a man, or a 55 year old woman, need maternity coverage? Why does a woman need prostrate cancer coverage? And how did someone become so jaded against our Constitution as you are?
Moment please: it is refered to as Useless Health Care. The company is great friends of the current administration. Do not be suckered in by UHC. The consumer never sees what the facility or the physician is paid. Physician was paid $1200 for a 8 hour brain surgery which included a 90 day followup period. So why is the CEO of UHC one of the highest paid executive health insurance?
@This one: Siting left wing sites for rebuttals is a fools game. You may like to play it, but few else will.
You willingly buy into LIES. If you like your pan you can keep your plan.. PERIOD. A LIE. I guess you like being lied to.
@This one:
Try this one, this one.. You’ve been LIED to.
http://newsbusters.org/print/68296
@This one:
Seems this one failed to include that little section on the pressure brought to bear on insurance companies by the Communist State of California.
But hey, who expects progressives, like this one, to be honest? Dishonesty is part of their m.o.
The reality is this lady can find an insurer to take her money via the ObamaCare exchange.
However……not one of those insurers will actually cover the SAME treatment for her preexisting condition!
In other words, her having “health coverage” is not the same as actually obtaining “health care.”
Ms. Sundby is in the MIDDLE of her treatment program for stage-4 gallbladder cancer.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/11/05/no-obamacare-might-not-cover-your-preexisting-condition/
Recall that, before her public shaming, Sec. Sebelius claimed she could NOT suspend the lung transplant ”rules” for young people dying in need of a new lung.
http://hotair.com/archives/2013/06/04/sebelius-i-cant-suspend-the-lung-transplant-rules-for-a-dying-10-year-old/
Yeah, death panels will be death panels, just as a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.
@This one:
You are contemptibly ignorant to accuse ANYONE of needing to do research when the only sources you spew are leftwing propaganda hack sites.
How much did your obamacare premium save you again, TO? How long did it take you to get enrolled in the program on the website?