"The Market kicks teenagers out of an operating room because it refuses to cover the surgery."
The destructive condition will rob her 19-year-old daughter of motor skills, memory and possibly one day, her life. For now, Caitlin has excruciating headaches and dangerous fainting spells. Her life as she knows it has come to a standstill.
"I constantly have to have somebody around me. I can't even stay at home for five minutes," Caitlin says.
With all the pain, there is still a peaceful expression on the face of Caitlin's mother. She says her faith is the only thing getting her through what can only be described as a nightmare.
Caitlin needs immediate surgery for her condition, and she was hours away from getting it.
The problem? Her insurance company, Aetna. They approved the operation 15 minutes too late. Caitlin lost the operating room to another patient and had to be rescheduled.
Then, the company came back with an even bigger shocker. They told her they would not cover her brain surgery at all, that her benefits ran out.
The family would now have to foot the bill at a staggering $113,000. Tampa General Hospital was requiring $55,000 down, and the rest after the operation.
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
1 comments:
The business community sure loves the free market, until it's time to bail out companies considered critical to the economy (e.g. banks, airlines, car manufacturers).
Not only is paying for this surgery the only humane thing to do, but it's also in society's long-term economic interests.
Much of the narrative on health care has been dominated by the notion that providing universal coverage is about providing coverage to people who can't afford health insurance. But many people don't realize that many health insurance plans have a benefit cap. After you use up a certain dollar amount of care, you're screwed! (My union recently renegotiated our collective bargaining agreement, and a major issue was the benefit cap on our health insurance.)
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