"Martha is $28,000 in debt due to cancer & hospital is threateng her with collection agency"

Statement of Stephen Finan, Associate Director of Policy, American Cancer Society - April 15, 2008

Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Health of the House Committee on Ways and Means

I would like to share a story of a cancer patient who was insured and struggled financially because of the high cost-sharing for covered benefits. Martha, a 63 year-old retired woman, was diagnosed with Stage I breast cancer in November 2007. For her cancer treatment, Martha had surgery followed by radiation. Martha is now post-treatment, but still needs periodic follow-up visits to her oncologist to monitor for recurrence. Martha has a health insurance policy, but the policy is inadequate for her needs. For example, the insurance paid $1,000 of a $10,000 hospital bill for her surgery. Martha said she is $28,000 in medical debt due to her cancer diagnosis, and the hospital is threatening her with a collection agency. Martha lives in a state that has a medically underwritten individual insurance market, so it is unlikely she would be offered another policy. Martha beat her cancer, but now she is struggling with keeping her head above water financially.

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/april/statement_of_stephen.php

What a stupid system we have.

We're a joke to Europe.

At least not what passes for "insurance" in the USA today.

It's disgusting that things like this should be happening.

candidates are offering.

She had a collapsed lung and was on a respirator almost the whole time. She had emergency dialysis almost all that time as well. She had systemic organ infections and some organ failure. We were lucky that she made it through. She had a nurse at her bedside 24/7 just for herself. One on one. After she recovered a little, she spent another week in a ward with one nurse to four patients 24/7.

After literally hundreds of hours in intensive care, all the machines going full pelt, her costs were absolutely nothing. Nada. Not a penny. No co-pay. Nothing.

She survived and came back home and is almost back to normal now, and she does not have the crushing debt or forms to fill out, or collection agencies and all that.

You're probably wondering how she did it. It was easy. She lives in Britain where the people's taxes are used by the government to allow free healthcare for all.

She got the best treatment in the world, with no cost to her, and I have to say that if only America could join all the other civilized nations in the world and handle things like this, we would all be better off and a HUGH burden would be lifted from the poor and middle class alike.

or she could sign up with an agency like Cambridge Credit Counseling (i did a couple of years ago) and all efforts to collect by the hospital will be null & void. it's worth a try. running away from it or fretting about it without doing anything will get her in some deep shit.

They are nothing but Nazi's

:grr: :grr:

:hi:

when she needed it, paid out ten cents on the dollar for care? That's not insurance - that's a fucking senior citizen's discount! I wonder how much she paid into that system for it to fuck her over like that...

... I no longer care about "my good credit."

:woohoo:

Calls from collection agents? No problem, I don't worry one bit. I can even be (gasp!!!) friendly with them. The poor soul on the other end of the phone line either has a conscience, in which case they are quite miserable enough, or they have no conscience, so why the fuck should I care what they are saying? Maybe talking to a cheerful person grates on the mean rotten collection agents worse than talking to someone who is hurt and upset and embarrassed that they can't pay the bill.

Look, our government obviously doesn't care about money, when they need more, they just create more out of bad loans and thin air and screw the poor with lower wages and rising prices. The old "American Values" are gone and 99% of the collection agencies trying to send you on a guilt trip because you can't pay your medical bills are just taking advantage of you. They don't give a damn, you are just a turnip in their machine. If enough of us are rocks, maybe we break the machine someday.

Isn't that what the robbers used to say?