My Insurance Company Killed Me, Despite Obamacare
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/11/24/how-the-health-care-bureaucracy-killed-me.html
Malcolm MacDougall, a prominent speechwriter and creative director, was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier this year. Even after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, his insurance company delayed and denied cancer treatments despite MacDougall paying his premiums. This is his story, in his own words, written five days before he died.
Filed under: General Problems
This is freaking awful.
“Member is over 85 year[s] old and continues to smoke.”
I am over 50 and a smoker. Therefore, I know that any health problems I develop will be blamed on smoking. Just like any health problems that people who are overweight have are blamed on their weight. I’ve read that patients who are overweight have more difficulty getting doctors to believe their pain levels. “See, ma’m, if you just lose weight (stop smoking, cut-out sugar), you won’t be in pain anymore.”
Almost any medical condition can be related to smoking (or aging, come to think of it). And if I won’t stop smoking, I will get no help from the medical industry. The gentleman in this article was obviously lucky and privileged, but even those two things didn’t help. He was too old and he smoked — case closed.
At this point in my life, disabled and broke, it’s not like I could afford cancer treatments, anyway. So, if I stop smoking, I can look forward to a longer life with increasing pain levels and more under-treated pain. Yippee.
Dr. Ezekiel Emmanual (Rahm’s -Obummers former chief of staff, now Chicago mayor brother) one of the architects of this disasterous fiasco publicly touted and still believes not treating many illnesses based upon age and ones contribution to society…in other words rationing, but he refuses to call it as such.