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[Ed note: The following is a diary from the blog dailykos.com]
by nyceve
It's one thing to write about the health care catastrophe, it's another to look into the eyes of a woman dying of cancer.
The woman whom I met this afternoon, is a patient of my friend the surgeon and oncologist. This good doctor wanted me to meet her and her family because like so many millions of Americans they have been forced into a demeaning and ultimately fruitless battle with her insurance company.
My friend wanted me to see the the health care crisis not as an abstraction, but as a profound violation of the social contract between our once great nation and hard working, patriotic, tax paying American citizens.
And this is exactly what our broken system is: a violation of the social contract. Ask any doctor, and if he feels like telling you the truth, this is what he will say.
Her insurance story is not complicated, though her medical odyssey has been long, arduous and painful.
Sarah has metastatic endometrial cancer.
I will recount as much as I know. I beg your forgiveness for any medical specifics that I may have confused. As many of you know, I'm not a doctor--I'm just an outraged American.
Please focus on the essence of what I am saying, more than every medical detail. Her family wanted to talk because they knew from my friend that I am deeply committed to exposing the savage indifference to people like Sarah by our thoroughly corporatized health care system.
As they spoke I cringed. I cannot explain why, but I kept wondering what Barbara Bush would look like on a ventilator, withered, scared, and destroyed by cancer? Yes, this is what crossed my mind. I am only human, I am deeply flawed. I wondered why God spares Godless souls and inflicts such suffering on angels?
Sarah was prescribed a course of Avastin to help shrink her tumors. From what I gather Avastin is used primarily for colon cancer. It's use for other cancers is still somewhat experimental. Though only yesterday the FDA expanded the label for it. You can read the story here: http://www.marketwatch.com/…
Miraculously the Avastin started to work almost overnight. Sarah's tumors started to disappear almost before their eyes, her husband told me.
The insurance company refused to pay despite being sent documents, medical reports, lab reports all confirming the miraculous shrinkage of her tumors.
Her family pooled their resources and paid the cost of the treatment which they told me was around $2200.00 per round of chemotherapy.
Sarah is back in the hospital. She's on a respirator--the tube is in her neck so she's only able to communicate minimally. She welcomed me with a smile but sad, frightened eyes. She knew I was coming. She and her doctor, my friend, were pleased that I was going to try put a suffering human face on the tragic failures of our health care system.
Sarah's daughter said, they (the insurance company) just want my mother to die. There's not even any pretense of compassion. Just a quick death and get her off the books.
Her family has other plans. They are already starting to figure out how they'll pay for more Avastin--they have no doubt Sarah will pull through the current crisis. Paying for Avastin will once again become their biggest problem.
Aren't you proud to be an American citizen? To live in the richest country on the planet?
I'll end by telling you what Sarah's husband told me. He said, "don't despair, Eve, I love this country, don't ever give up on America. We're being tested right now. Sarah's not giving up, we're not giving up on her. Don't give up on America."
God bless them and all Americans who are struggling through illness and hardship. God bless all who are fighting desperate battles to survive and having sand thrown in their eyes every step of the way by the most horrendous, corrupt and evil government in the history of civilization.
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