Government healthcare refuses to cover breast cancer treatment.
By Taskr36
@Taskr36 (13963)
United States
August 19, 2011 3:31pm CST
Are you sure you want your life to depend on the government for your health care? One man in South Carolina is seeing exactly how bad government healthcare can be. He has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
According to federal law Medicaid is supposed to provide coverage to people suffering from breast cancer. The federal government refused to cover this man solely because of his gender. You think insurance companies are heartless? The federal government didn't care that it was cancer. They don't care about the fact that this man would die without treatment. Obama's not out there greasing the wheels to get this guy covered.
Several churches and other organizations have been helping him pay his bills while the federal government has been ignoring his pleas. The state of South Carolina has said that despite the federal government's sexist refusal of coverage, they will still cover him and submit forms to be reimbursed by the federal government who has already said they won't reimburse them. South Carolina is ready to appeal any refusal to reimburse the costs.
So how much do you trust the government to administer your health care? As you can see, even when the LAW states that the government must cover an illness they are more than happy to use loopholes to deny coverage. Medicaid and medicare deny coverage far more often than even the worst of insurance companies, but the left wing media just buries that statistic. Me? I'll take my chances with private insurance.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/19/south-carolina-dares-feds-to-deny-medicaid-coverage-to-male-breast-cancer/
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/breast-cancer-patient-denied-medicaid-coverage-man/story?id=14241171
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/368/reportcard.pdf
3 people like this
9 responses
@Latrivia (2878)
• United States
19 Aug 11
Wasn't this the same group of people who said they had to meddle with the medical coverage system because the insurance companies were denying coverage unfairly? I guess they forgot to change their own unfair coverage practices in the process.
1 person likes this
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
19 Aug 11
When the government is involved all decisions will be based on politics not best practices. Insurance companies have set policies and if they don't follow the policies they know that they can be sued. If the government denies you who do you sue? Who can you go to get justice?
1 person likes this
@rogue13xmen13 (14403)
• United States
20 Aug 11
Hey, no one said the health care law was perfect. It has quite a few flaws.
@ladym33 (10979)
• United States
20 Aug 11
That is truly shameful. Just because he is a man does not mean that the cancer is any less dangerous for him. Unfortunately we have no income right now, and our kids are on government health care at the moment. Because I am diabetic private non group insurance just denies me without question which I think is unfair. My diabetes is under control, I am losing weight, I am only on oral medication, and the doctor feels if I keep on my current path of losing weight and exercising that I will not even need medication anymore, I am healthier then most people I know yet, I can't get insurance without paying out of my ears. I finally found an indemnity plan for $300 which is pretty expensive when you have no income. It is not even full insurance.
@matersfish (6306)
• United States
20 Aug 11
After that horrible accident at the Indiana State Fair, I was hired to write an article about one of the victims, Christina Santiago.
As I was writing it, I learned that she worked for the Howard Brown Health Center's Lesbian Community Care Project.
Not only is this for women only, but for lesbian, bi and transgender women.
Ah. I just scratch my head at all the specifics in America.
Apparently it's bad to treat anyone different, unless, of course, you're doing something good for them. Then you can separate them all the day and quarantine them from society and create special services.
These days, you obviously couldn't put up a "blacks only" drinking fountain next to a "white only" drinking fountain. Sorry. Let me rephrase. You obviously couldn't put up a "whites only" fountain. Probably a "Christian only" or a "straight only" either. I think you could actually do a gay, lesbian, black, Asian, Latino, or Muslim, and not only be held as a hero of the people but also receive government funding for your fountain.
We can't have it both ways. You can't single out to provide and then speak about "equality" in the next breath. It just doesn't make sense.
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
20 Aug 11
You're certainly right about that. Obama's own secretary of education is pro-segregation. When he was in Illinois he was a big proponent of the LGBT high school which would have segregated students to "protect" them.
To the left it often seems like the equal protection clause is a joke.
@BalthasarTheRat (656)
• United States
21 Aug 11
This argument kinda shoots itself in the foot, so to speak. Perfect Free Universal Health Care would have taken care of this no problem, no other system would. The problem in this case is federal oversight over who and when and how much things cost. A true UHS would ignore that, of course making it incredibly expensive and politically unviable.
Under popular medical plans, the man still woudn't be covered for any number of reasons, cost to benefit being a popular one now but especially pre-existing condition, which, at least, this last round of reform tried to do away with.
All this argument does is show that the government is as heartless AS the private companies, the difference being, once this became public, you can bet political pressure will be applied to get it take care of. Some idiot somewhere probably just thought he was saving the taxpayers money by catching a guy trying to milk the system. What we need is health care independent of financial consideration at the decision level. Only a true Universal Health Care could do that and we'll never have that. Any other example that exists in the world today is dependant upon money and politics. That doesn't prove private versus public is better or worse in either direction.
There are sob stories out there purporting to show the evils of both sides, so when you see one, just remember the bias and don't fall for the rhetoric.
No matter which way you lean, private or publc, reforms are needed.
@whiteheather39 (24403)
• United States
19 Aug 11
That is disgraceful. Blatant discrimination. You can bet any male government official faced with the same diagnosis would have no problem getting the best of medical care.
