Bawwww, we'll have to pay for poor people like this!

[xerox78]

In the Great Recession, Even Death Is Too Expensive for the Poor

Editor's Note: This story was written for New America Media as the first in a series of columns by Dr. Sanjay Basu called A Doctor's Word, exploring the impact of the recession on health care for poor people. It appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle's Insight and on SFGate.com.

Comments

[keeni84]

This is so fucked up.

[hashishinahooka]

Despite the fact that Rita had “pulmonary arterial hypertension”--severely increased pressure in her lungs--he wrote that Rita suffered from run-of-the-mill high blood pressure. Rita was denied.

I wonder how many people have lost assistance because someone couldn't be bothered to do a little research on an illness before writing it off.

[sephirajo]

Quite a few. I'm having a hard time even getting on it at the moment because my extremely severe lupus and fibro don't "impede my ability to work [name] could work as a cashier as she described and does not need federal aid."

It also doesn't help when the experts the government has look you over are often doctors of an entirely different field. She should've seen a pulmonologist. They likely had her speak to a work injury doctor. And if it was like the three appointments I've had to do the entirety of it was "walk to a door/walk ten feet."

As tragic as it is, this keeps happening especially if the claimant is under the age of fifty.

This article actually had me in literal tears. This is a woman who not only deserves disability more than most, she should never have had it taken away. The entirety of the social security system now is tailor designed to outlast you either your life, your will or both. And it's doubly so in this case. T___T

[dncingmalkavian]

For what it's worth, that's terrible, and I'm sorry.

I keep hearing stories like this, and it just pisses me right off. My partner, who is on SSD, was denied four times before he was hospitalized for the umpteenth time (he suffers from severe depression and anxiety), and it still took him forever to get a payment. He was luckier than Rita - he went to live with his brother in the interim - but what if he hadn't been?

Just ugh at this whole thing.

[hashishinahooka]

I can't even imagine someone dismissing lupus like that. I'm sorry you're going through this.

[confectionqueen]

That made me cry so damn hard.
A series of the governments reviewers of her case interrogated Rita, and one without any medical training misinterpreted her medical chart
Fuck this. Fuck all of this.

[rosicrucian]

After working in the insurance industry I wish I could say this was an isolated incident. I worked processing medicare claims and I don't even want to say the percentage of people who needed their medications to survive that were denied time after time after time. The worst for me was Alzheimer's patients, I'm not sure why. Perhaps denying them their medication just seemed especially cruel for an already cruel fate?

I think MinnesotaCare (Minnesota's Medicaid program) limits to four prescriptions? I know they limit but I don't know the cut-off for sure. It's part of the reason that my doctor keeps me on relatively cheap/generic medications if he can, in case I go over. I need my meds to like, not die. You know. :\

Also, barely related:

"The health care providers who treat them routinely have to ask: How do you wish to die? Some of the dying--wanting to keep death at bay--repeatedly ask to participate in the latest pharmaceutical trials. Others have drawn up a "bucket list" of adventures for their final days. But more people have

[sephirajo]

I had MN Care for quite awhile and I was able to get all eight of mine. Maybe it varies case by case?

[belleweather]

Limiting the number of prescriptions is stupid from a cost-containment perspective, too. It pushes doctors to prescribe combination meds, which are often MUCH more expensive than the same medications in two separate pills, because if the Pharma companies put them in one pill it extends their patent protection. It's the sort of strategy that could only be thought up by a legislature.

[anjak_j]

Just appalling and exceeding callous. A developed country treating its dying in such a way when it has the means to do way better should be truly ashamed.

[dncingmalkavian]

+1