New York Daily News – by BILL HUTCHINSON
A California cancer patient says President Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act is costing her the world-class medical team that has kept her alive for seven years.
Edie Littlefield Sundby, who is battling stage 4 gallbladder cancer, said her “affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy” is being canceled because her insurance company refuses to participate in Obamacare.
“I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out,” Sundby wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal.
California resident Edie Littlefield Sundby poses with her husband, Dale.
She said she is facing a life-or-death dilemma when her policy ends on Dec. 31: get coverage through the state government health exchange and lose access to her cancer doctors, or go broke paying up to 50% more outside the exchange.
Her insurance company, UnitedHealthcare, announced in May that it will not participate in California’s insurance exchange, a spokesman for that state’s Department of Insurance said Monday.
UnitedHealthcare only has about 8,000 customers in California, or a mere 2% of the state’s individual market, making it tough to compete with Kaiser Permanente and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California, which share 87% of the market.
“I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out,” Sundby writes.
Cheryl Randolph, spokeswoman for UnitedHealthcare, said the company is taking a wait-and-see-attitude about the California insurance exchange.
“Because of UnitedHealthcare of California’s historically small presence in the individual market and the fact that individual consumers in the state are well served with many competitive product offerings, we will focus on our employer group insurance and Medicare business in California for 2014,” Randolph said.
CHARLES DHARAPAK/AP
Cancer patient Edie Littlefield Sundby’s insurance company, UnitedHealthcare, will not participate in California’s state insurance exchange, a spokesman for the California Department of Insurance says.
The company’s decision leaves customers like Sundby, 62, in the lurch.
“For a cancer patient, medical coverage is a matter of life and death,” Sundby wrote. “Take away people’s ability to control their medical-coverage choices and they may die. I guess that’s a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that’s the point.”
She said UnitedHealthcare has paid $1.2 million to keep her alive since March 2007.
She said the medical plan has “never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team” — made up of doctors at Stanford University, the University of California, San Diego; Moores Cancer Center in San Diego and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
“What happened to the President’s promise, ‘You can keep your health plan’? Or to the promise that ‘You can keep your doctor’ ?” Sundby wrote. “Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician.”
There should be a special kind of insurance plan just for “cancer patients”, especially stage 4 cancer patients. If the asshole’s in Washington can appropriate 13 billion for an aircraft carrier, “USS Gerald Ford” which by the way went multi billions over budget, then they can shell out measly millions for cancer care for Americans nationals.
Dick Cheney’s artificial heart cost the taxpayers untold millions, he hasn’t paid a f@#king dime. The health care the maggots in Washington have given themselves will cover everything, including any and all cancer care while paying practically nothing.
This alone should be enough provocation for millions to march up the steps and take down the traitorous weasel maggots who call themselves United States congressman.
Ya know what Mark, if they did have a specific insurance plan just for stage 3 or stage 4 cancer patients that you can bet that the patients would be treated more like DG lab rats or something if you know whatt I`m sayin`. Yea I bet they would be experimenting on the patient as soon as the patient was admitted……….I would stay with the natural stuff as much as possible as I do now myself.
Right, but
This lady seems to have found happiness through her doctors, she seems to think that they’re saving her life. That shouldn’t have stopped. She has been treated for 5 years at a cost over 1 million. This care should have gone on for her because of the success. They could have worked something out. She will probably die now because of all of the aggravation.
As far as the special kind of insurance, well then they should pay for all natural remedies as well. That shit ain’t cheap either. I’m on them myself. Insurance should be paying for that. The deductibles are a joke. Yeah I know, they’re in bed with the doctors. So change the rules or get your head blown off.
If you want good herbals Mark – both culinary and medicinal herbals – I would suggest checking out http://www.ameriherb.com, ph # is 1-800-267-6141. these guys have excellent prices, some of the better quality that I have seen in over 40+ years, and they are real nice people to do business with. Call them and request a “wholesale price guide”. There is no amout too small, but they do deal mostly in pounds of herbs and spices and at a real good wholesale price. If they do not carry a product just ask and they will provide. I suppose that the average price for a pound of herbs or spices would be about $5.00. They also carry other things like salves, tinctures, capsules and hand cappers to fill your own capsules. Check them out. they also are on line at http://www.ameriherb.com . Also though Mark check out things like bad combinations – just because they are legal doesn`t always mean that they are safe with any combination – herbal medicine can cure and it can also kill so do at least a little bit of study and searches on the subject and ask around a little.
Thanks Digger –
These natural remedies work. The door needs to be slammed shut on the medicinal mafia bullshit. Cancer is everywhere now, Fukushima, Chemtrails, GMO, getting out of bed, etc. Jesus H Christ, even Alaskan Eskimos are coming in with tumors.
Its time to make these Democrat assholes who passed this crap pay for it if we have to peel their skin off and use it to make keychains.
Obama and the rest of these dumb ass donkeys who passed this bill without reading it need to be held accountable,
Dont participate, dont cooperate, its time to just plain stop going along.