Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/198537
Patients:5 2/8/08 2:43 PM Page 14 and a $8,000 deductible. I couldn't afford that. Now I can't find anyone that will insure me. "I have chronic pain 24/7 on the left side. I have been trying to find a surgeon to remove the implant and scar tissue. I will have to work out a payment plan and no one is willing to do that. They want money upfront. It has ruined the last five years of my life completely. I can't do any of the physical work that I am used to doing. The pain and soreness is too much for me to handle." my symptoms were not severe enough to warrant the MRI. "It turned out I don't have MS but I did have a severe spine problem. The long time that my nerves in my spine had been compressed caused permanent nerve damage and I am now 46 and permanently disabled. "Because that insurance company didn't want that test done my life is ruined forever. I am now on Medicare only, my husband's insurance would not allow me to use them as a secondary insurance to help defray the costs of only having Medicare. They said we would have to pay them $400 more than my husband was already paying them to let me use them as a secondary insurance. "I will suffer the rest of my life and now my husband is having health problems and his insurance has a $5,000 deductible, so here we go again. We don't want anything that we don't deserve or want a handout. We want affordable healthcare and not to have to use grocery money to get my pain meds every month. My husband has worked at least two jobs, even three jobs at one time for the last 10 years because of medical bills." Eugene Donovan Rowe, Massachusetts "i'm attempting to stay warm this winter with a tiny wood stove so I can afford my $470 per month share of my monthly health insurance. "I'm not poor, I'm just cold. I am a retired educator with a gross retirement income of just under $36,000 per year for my wife and myself. My share of my yearly health insurance premium for the two of us plus my and my wife's drug co-pays add up to more than $6,000 per year. "The adjustments I've made in order to keep my insurance are to eat mainly homemade soups and to use a very small woodstove. In really cold weather, the stove can't bring the inside temperature above 48 degrees at a distance of more than 10 feet from the stove, so my wife who has asthma and I must spend most of our time close to the woodstove. "We are of the many [in Massachusetts] who don't qualify for assistance because I'm not poor. The irony is that of the almost $120,000 in insurance premiums that I and my employer have paid to Blue Cross/Blue Shield over the past 10 years, I calculate that our medical and drug expense that [the insurance company] has had to pay on our behalf comes to less than $40,000. I wonder if Blue Cross/Blue Shield could lend me a little of the excess? Does Blue Cross/Blue Shield sell heat insurance? I find it ironic that while education is considered a basic human right, the need to remain healthy isn't." Jack Mahoney Boca Raton, Florida Carol Blacki Cleveland, Ohio "my medical problems started in 1998. I was not diagnosed until 2003. My doctor at that time wanted to do a complete MRI of my spine because she thought I might have had Multiple Sclerosis that was affecting my spine because my symptoms mimicked MS. The MRI was denied by the insurance company, saying 14 REGISTERED NURSE with the pending birth of their son, Aiden, in 2005, Jack Mahoney and his wife wanted to go to the hospital near their home. Though he called his insurer several months in advance, "they did not say we would not be covered." But after his son was born, his insurance company refused to pay any of the bills, claiming it was an out-of-network hospital. Mahoney and his family got stuck with a $25,000 bill. W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2008