Tonya and PQBON's WebLog
This in an interesting article on free preventative health care. Most of it highlights good things. However, I just couldn't belive how horrable this clip from the second page was:
Natavidad Martinez, 51, who used to work as a bookbinder for $7 an hour and never had insurance, has found herself in a bureaucratic nightmare.
In March 2005, Ms. Martinez, a Seton patient, was found to have liver cancer. She was put on Medicaid, applied for federal disability and was put in line for a liver transplant, without which, doctors said, she had six months to two years to live. Through the summer of 2005, she made the hour-and-a-half drive from her home to San Antonio for preparatory tests.
That August, she was awarded disability payments of $561 a month. But because her income surpassed the $535 limit for Medicaid in her circumstances, she said, she was told by the state that her coverage had ended, and the hospital said it could not proceed with a transplant.
"I asked Social Security if they couldn't just reduce my payments by $30 a month," she said, "but they said it doesn't work that way."
In another twist, by federal rules, she will qualify for Medicare two years after the initial finding of disability. She awaits the start of Medicare coverage next March, when she can rejoin the transplant line.
I can't believe in this country in this day in age people would be bumped from a transplant list for insurance reasons. It just doens't make sense to me.
Posted by pqbon at October 30, 2006 1:46 PM