Dear Good People
The real Norma Rae, Crystal Lee Sutton's life ends with more insurance and treatment questions than answers, The fine print in the health care legal documents are too complex for most of us to figure out and it depends on how smart you are, who you are, or how much money you have, or your family has connections to good doctors or, what medical attorneys know to help people navigate the health care system to figure out how to get an exception to almost any exemption. The two party system of government is not protecting ordinary working people, it is protecting the wealthy investors who hide behind corporate shields so they are not personally responsible for the damage and death they cause and/or allow to happen. Senators are not working for all Americans or unemployed people who do not have a union job or employee benefits. I have heard even union workers might not get enough hours and coverage paid if they do not follow the party line.
I hope responsible investigative reporters and "truthseekers like me" will continue look for more details on her treatment plan and her insurance company.
What kind of health insurance policy did she have? I read online somewhere that it had an annual cap of $100.000 per year and she was 67 years old when she was first diagnosed. I wonder why not, or if she was actually on MEDICARE? We need more facts instead of the typical media hype for dummies that we get even from senators on both sides, because they are not our our side.
There is no approved FDA chemotherapy for malignant meningioma because the mega big corporations of the pharma industry and the NCI Adult Brain Tumor Consortium have decided not spent our tax money on research studying this usually slow growing brain tumor that strikes women teice as often as men, because it is generally considered rare and benign. But our meningiomas are twice as common as the deadly type that killed Ted Kennedy and they hasppen twice as often to women. And surviving two brain surgeries exactly a year apart is a remarkable feat for anyone, especially someone her age. I would have expected that once her doctor found out it was malignant after her first surgery she would have been treated with brain radiation therapy and chemo right away, why wait a year and why another surgery at her age? Why didn't she get radiation therapy and some chemo a year earlier, like other malignant brain tunor patients? Did she chose not to have brain radiation? Was it recommended for her case? I would like to know waht actually happened here before Democrats try to use her as a poster child for Obamacare. According to her age, she was medicare eligible for the past three years. Secondly, We do not have enough information. What was the chemo drug she was offered? Was it experimental? or not normally used or considered effective for this type of tumor? Or was it a simple coding error?
Do we know what drug she would have been given if she was on MEDICARE? Could she even get an investigational drug like I am on, if she was on MEDICARE or if she had a private policy, I doubt the drug I take was even mentioned to her by her doctors. I can't get it from my private insurance UNITED HEALTH CARE and will our government pay for it once I do get on MEDICARE? I got it for free from the NCI in the 1990's. Or will I have to stop taking it, if we can no longer afford an extra $6,000 a year for my care? And I had to wait a whole year for the paperwork while my vision got worse before I could get for myself, not just two months. IS it big mega corporation profit? bribes and/or bonuses? I wish I knew all the answers, but I want the federal government plan that retired employees like Dick Cheney has, he got such good care he has survived 5 heart attacks intact, although I thought he had some brain cells missing even when he shot that guy while out hunting, many people do not even survive one.
Yes, this is very personal for me, that's why I am such a fanatic about health care issues and education and information. Reading is fundamental to survive in the world today. I guess they will probably try to deny me approval again, but if I only have to wait two months to get it that will be better than the situation while I was on private insurance. I certainly do not have all the answers, but I can keep on asking probing questions because this is so vital to my own health and my future, because inquiring minds want to know more. I believe there is no such thing as a dumb question as long as we are polite, and some times we might need to be persistent. It is incorrect answers or silence without any answer that hurts us the most. GBYAY Anne McGinnis Breen
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health care. Show all posts
Friday, February 26, 2010
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
MORE HEALTH CARE, NOT MORE WARFARE
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
I'm ready to win this time, first I was told it was all in my head, then in 1992-3 congress ignored all women including me and Hillary, then one dotor ridiculed me by calling me a brain tumor damaged survivor and a naive pathetic pawn of the evil feminists. Now I am being asked
not to write any political comments and personal suspicions about longterm brain radiation injury are too scary. LOL I'm an old lady, I wouldn't scare anyone lol
I was asked not to write even about vital changes underway in our health care system on the main serious meningioma www.brain trust.org email list, but really everything is political, especially the safe non-invasive drug I use to control meningioma tumor regrowth instead of radiation treatment.
After reading the October 2009 "Thats Outrageous" article in Readers Digest about the
billions in waste, abuse and fraud in our current health care system. Eliminating waste fraud and abuse of the health care system saves60 billion a year lost to fraudulent practices and scam artists.
I think if they water down the current bill without any additional coverage option for unemployed, self employed, private contractors, and small business owners, it will not bring costs down or be worth voting for. We have to get some public government plan passed and get a bulk discount for common drugs from pharma and
so we could see from elected officials vote where they stand, whether they are seriously voting for ordinary peoples best interst instead of their own. Medicare even made payments to deceased doctors in some medical scams and we all end up paying for expensive emergency room care unless everyone can sign up for a primary care center. Some doctors and ERs are recommending defensive excessive medical tests to avoid lawsuits from patients and some professionally criminal doctors who scare people into unneccessary expensive and dangerous procedures.
We can win with HR 676 with either a single payer to private providers or a public option for an affordable health care plan like Medicare for the working class who want to sign up. We have been paying all elected politians, 2 million federal employees and public policy decision makers billions for years
to recommend national plans and cost effective public health maangement issues for twenty years and this information as been available to all. This is not rushing into anything new. Approximately 40% of Americans get federal health care, Medicare, medicaid or VAMilitarycare or SCHIPS childrens health care already, extending a public option to currently unemployed and working adults who do not get it as a benefit with their job, (mostly low paid women workers and hourly part timers or independent contractors)will not bankrupt the private insurance industry.
Please read the bill HR 676 and read the list of your house members who supported it early on and have now backed down for some reason, compare that with how they voted on endless war supplmental funding,the bailout funding and stimulus package.
If they voted to use our tax dollars to save Wall street firms with bonuses and big banks and the insurance giant AIG and the auto makers plus package to big government spending, they are just not voting for ordinary working people, or the least of these without a job that currently lack health care coverage.
IF they are still voting for the special corporate interests that got them elected, if they can stay in for two terms they get life time benefits and retirement plans while the poor and unemployable like me who can not help them in return get nothing. Not an end to the deadly military guerilla fighting abroad that kills so many innocent civilians,destroys their communities, and not even decent health care for our legal citizens and their family members here, if they ever get really sick.
Affordable care must be an option for all those wise enough to realize they need to have coverage in case of emergencies or serious illness. We pay for all the others anyway, no one gets turned away at the emergency room, or charity hospitlas, but that is a very expensive way to provide health care and it denies prompt ER treatment to tax paying insured citizens, if the uninsured can have access to a local public clinic or urgent care center we would all have saved everyone some money.
From what I have read so far, I think HR 676 is the best bill to attempt to provide national health care coverage for Americans that guarantees the Patient Bill OF Rights and has:
a .No exclusions for pre-existing conditions,
b. Guarantees access to essential services and benefits,
including appropriate cognitive rehabilitation for stroke, any brain injury etc
c. Places limits on cost sharing and provides drug discounts
d. Satisfactory local or out of network provider services for specific specialityfor brain tumors and other specialists and home nursing care if they need it
e. No annual or lifetime limits on coverage
f. Consumer protections, medical minimium standard regulations and more public
transparent accountability to eliminate medical errors and poor quality service.
I hope some of these issues will be effective immediately, but if we don't speak up none of them will happen for 3 or 4 years on a good day, if they pass some bill.
Basic coverage of cognitive rehabilitation for brain injury has been recently implemented by United Health Care and Anthem Insurance Companies, Anthem Health Plans, Anthem BC/BS and we need to make sure it is added to TRICARE for our returning service members and included in our national public plan to foster improved behavioral remediation especially for younger adults surviving tramatic brain injury and maternity care for pregnant young women and reproductve rights for all women. IF men can get viagra included for themselves,they ought to give women the pills they need to protect themselves.
To see more legislative brain injury issues and take action
You can go to http://capwiz.com/bia/issues/
I have not met anyone who pays as much in monthly premiums as my husband and I.
I suspect no health plan will come or be implemented soon enough to help us, there maybe a few years before it takes effect even if it passes this fall. Now my husband pays 24,000 a yr for both our good private individual plans, mine is $960 a month from United Health care and his Aetna is up to $1235.00 a month in October 2009 which is triple what we paid ten years ago, He had to change his Aetna to a $5000 deductibe in order to get back under $1000 a month premium. the investigational, off-label use of Mifepristone=Mifeprex to control meningioma regrowth is not covered by any prescription coverage plan and costs him $6,000 a year which is triple what it cost just four years ago. The first time I took it for three years in the 90's it was free in a NCI SWOG trial. and United Health Care dropped all my prescription coverage years ago.
Rising medical health care costs have made the current private insurance system unaffordable for most middle class American couples, no kids at home and no family plan for us, because my tumor condition and between 55 and 65,self-employed with pre existing conditions. (Oh who can afford $30,000 a year to buy a brand new car??)for health insurance, when we are both healthy right now. He never had a heart attack, but had a stent put in near his heart about six years ago as a preventative measure after one of those high priced corporate executive physical exams before he switched jobs
Its how how we spend money, its about regional geographic variations in medical costs
differences in retail medical costs without insurance, and health insurance
discount contracts for large companies and unions etc high specialty costs, or generalists costs, money is fungible, but the radiation doctors are getting rich and often they do not care for their own patients in the infusion centers or radiation treatment rooms.
Dr Andrew Weil, a famous Az doc of nutrition writes most radiation docs make a million a year, while primary care docs and general surgeons often make only enough to cover their office costs and malpractice insurance, not real profits. I think we could do the math and balance the medical\hospital costs more evenly if we wanted to by averaging regional differences state by state. SOme states cost much less, but opening up the state systems to giant corporations without having any anti trust laws seems stupid to me. Unless ironically it may mean someday we will all owe our souls to the comapny store all over again.
(This is my original rough draft, if you send me your comments I may be able to revise anything that seems offense to someone else, at least I have found my own voice again and have been able to speak up loud enough to be heard. THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR
I'm ready to win this time, first I was told it was all in my head, then in 1992-3 congress ignored all women including me and Hillary, then one dotor ridiculed me by calling me a brain tumor damaged survivor and a naive pathetic pawn of the evil feminists. Now I am being asked
not to write any political comments and personal suspicions about longterm brain radiation injury are too scary. LOL I'm an old lady, I wouldn't scare anyone lol
I was asked not to write even about vital changes underway in our health care system on the main serious meningioma www.brain trust.org email list, but really everything is political, especially the safe non-invasive drug I use to control meningioma tumor regrowth instead of radiation treatment.
After reading the October 2009 "Thats Outrageous" article in Readers Digest about the
billions in waste, abuse and fraud in our current health care system. Eliminating waste fraud and abuse of the health care system saves60 billion a year lost to fraudulent practices and scam artists.
I think if they water down the current bill without any additional coverage option for unemployed, self employed, private contractors, and small business owners, it will not bring costs down or be worth voting for. We have to get some public government plan passed and get a bulk discount for common drugs from pharma and
so we could see from elected officials vote where they stand, whether they are seriously voting for ordinary peoples best interst instead of their own. Medicare even made payments to deceased doctors in some medical scams and we all end up paying for expensive emergency room care unless everyone can sign up for a primary care center. Some doctors and ERs are recommending defensive excessive medical tests to avoid lawsuits from patients and some professionally criminal doctors who scare people into unneccessary expensive and dangerous procedures.
We can win with HR 676 with either a single payer to private providers or a public option for an affordable health care plan like Medicare for the working class who want to sign up. We have been paying all elected politians, 2 million federal employees and public policy decision makers billions for years
to recommend national plans and cost effective public health maangement issues for twenty years and this information as been available to all. This is not rushing into anything new. Approximately 40% of Americans get federal health care, Medicare, medicaid or VAMilitarycare or SCHIPS childrens health care already, extending a public option to currently unemployed and working adults who do not get it as a benefit with their job, (mostly low paid women workers and hourly part timers or independent contractors)will not bankrupt the private insurance industry.
Please read the bill HR 676 and read the list of your house members who supported it early on and have now backed down for some reason, compare that with how they voted on endless war supplmental funding,the bailout funding and stimulus package.
If they voted to use our tax dollars to save Wall street firms with bonuses and big banks and the insurance giant AIG and the auto makers plus package to big government spending, they are just not voting for ordinary working people, or the least of these without a job that currently lack health care coverage.
IF they are still voting for the special corporate interests that got them elected, if they can stay in for two terms they get life time benefits and retirement plans while the poor and unemployable like me who can not help them in return get nothing. Not an end to the deadly military guerilla fighting abroad that kills so many innocent civilians,destroys their communities, and not even decent health care for our legal citizens and their family members here, if they ever get really sick.
Affordable care must be an option for all those wise enough to realize they need to have coverage in case of emergencies or serious illness. We pay for all the others anyway, no one gets turned away at the emergency room, or charity hospitlas, but that is a very expensive way to provide health care and it denies prompt ER treatment to tax paying insured citizens, if the uninsured can have access to a local public clinic or urgent care center we would all have saved everyone some money.
From what I have read so far, I think HR 676 is the best bill to attempt to provide national health care coverage for Americans that guarantees the Patient Bill OF Rights and has:
a .No exclusions for pre-existing conditions,
b. Guarantees access to essential services and benefits,
including appropriate cognitive rehabilitation for stroke, any brain injury etc
c. Places limits on cost sharing and provides drug discounts
d. Satisfactory local or out of network provider services for specific specialityfor brain tumors and other specialists and home nursing care if they need it
e. No annual or lifetime limits on coverage
f. Consumer protections, medical minimium standard regulations and more public
transparent accountability to eliminate medical errors and poor quality service.
I hope some of these issues will be effective immediately, but if we don't speak up none of them will happen for 3 or 4 years on a good day, if they pass some bill.
Basic coverage of cognitive rehabilitation for brain injury has been recently implemented by United Health Care and Anthem Insurance Companies, Anthem Health Plans, Anthem BC/BS and we need to make sure it is added to TRICARE for our returning service members and included in our national public plan to foster improved behavioral remediation especially for younger adults surviving tramatic brain injury and maternity care for pregnant young women and reproductve rights for all women. IF men can get viagra included for themselves,they ought to give women the pills they need to protect themselves.
To see more legislative brain injury issues and take action
You can go to http://capwiz.com/bia/issues/
I have not met anyone who pays as much in monthly premiums as my husband and I.
I suspect no health plan will come or be implemented soon enough to help us, there maybe a few years before it takes effect even if it passes this fall. Now my husband pays 24,000 a yr for both our good private individual plans, mine is $960 a month from United Health care and his Aetna is up to $1235.00 a month in October 2009 which is triple what we paid ten years ago, He had to change his Aetna to a $5000 deductibe in order to get back under $1000 a month premium. the investigational, off-label use of Mifepristone=Mifeprex to control meningioma regrowth is not covered by any prescription coverage plan and costs him $6,000 a year which is triple what it cost just four years ago. The first time I took it for three years in the 90's it was free in a NCI SWOG trial. and United Health Care dropped all my prescription coverage years ago.
Rising medical health care costs have made the current private insurance system unaffordable for most middle class American couples, no kids at home and no family plan for us, because my tumor condition and between 55 and 65,self-employed with pre existing conditions. (Oh who can afford $30,000 a year to buy a brand new car??)for health insurance, when we are both healthy right now. He never had a heart attack, but had a stent put in near his heart about six years ago as a preventative measure after one of those high priced corporate executive physical exams before he switched jobs
Its how how we spend money, its about regional geographic variations in medical costs
differences in retail medical costs without insurance, and health insurance
discount contracts for large companies and unions etc high specialty costs, or generalists costs, money is fungible, but the radiation doctors are getting rich and often they do not care for their own patients in the infusion centers or radiation treatment rooms.
Dr Andrew Weil, a famous Az doc of nutrition writes most radiation docs make a million a year, while primary care docs and general surgeons often make only enough to cover their office costs and malpractice insurance, not real profits. I think we could do the math and balance the medical\hospital costs more evenly if we wanted to by averaging regional differences state by state. SOme states cost much less, but opening up the state systems to giant corporations without having any anti trust laws seems stupid to me. Unless ironically it may mean someday we will all owe our souls to the comapny store all over again.
(This is my original rough draft, if you send me your comments I may be able to revise anything that seems offense to someone else, at least I have found my own voice again and have been able to speak up loud enough to be heard. THANK YOU FOR READING THIS FAR
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