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Sat 3 Nov, 2007 07:14 am
November 3, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Worsening the Odds
By BOB HERBERT
Lonnie Lynam, a self-employed carpenter in Pipe Creek, Tex., specialized in spiral staircases. Friends thought of him as a maestro in a toolbelt, a whiz with a hammer and nails.
"His customers were always so pleased," his mother told me. "There was this one family, kind of higher class, and he built them one of those glass holders that you would see in a bar or a lounge, with the glasses hanging upside down in different sizes. It was awesome."
Lonnie had a following, a reputation. He was said to have a magic touch.
What he didn't have was health insurance.
So when the headaches came, he tried to ignore them. "We've had migraines in our family," said his mother, Betty Lynam, who is 67 and lives in Creston, Iowa. "So he thought that was what it was."
Lonnie's brother, Kelly, said: "He wasn't the type to complain. And since he didn't have insurance ..."
Kelly, 45, worked on different jobs with his brother. He was the one who rushed Lonnie to an emergency room one day last fall when the headaches became so severe that Lonnie couldn't stand up.
It would be great if there were something unusual about this story: A person without health insurance gets sick. The person holds off on going to the doctor because there's no way to pay the bill. The person is denied the full range of treatment because of the absence of insurance. The person dies.
Lonnie Lynam's headaches had been caused by cancerous tumors in his brain. During surgery, doctors discovered that the cancer had spread from other parts of his body.
Cancer is no longer the all-but-automatic death sentence that it once was. Extraordinary progress has been made in fighting the myriad forms of the disease.
But, as the American Cancer Society has recently been stressing, the health coverage crisis in the U.S. is a major drag on this fight.
"A woman without health insurance who gets a breast cancer diagnosis is at least 40 percent more likely to die," said John Seffrin, the cancer society's chief executive.
According to the cancer society: "Uninsured patients and those on Medicaid are much more likely than those with private health insurance to be diagnosed with cancer in its later stages, when it is more often fatal."
The uninsured (and underinsured) are also much less likely to get the most effective treatment after the diagnosis is made.
There are 47 million Americans without health insurance and another 17 million with coverage that will not pay for the treatments necessary to fight cancer and other very serious diseases.
The bottom line, said Mr. Seffrin, is that "the number of people who are suffering needlessly from cancer because they don't have access to quality health care is very large and increasing as I speak."
Part two of the Lynam family's nightmare began when Lonnie returned home from the hospital. Lonnie had very little money, so Kelly stepped in and began paying most of his brother's nonmedical bills.
Betty Lynam flew to Texas as often as she could to be with her son. She said he needed chemotherapy and radiation treatment, but since he couldn't afford it, he couldn't always get it.
"He was trying to pay a little bit at a time for the doctors and for the different treatments," she said. "But he didn't have a savings account or any collateral, except for his tools.
"I'd ask how he was feeling, and he'd tell me, ?'Well, I didn't get the treatment today.' And I'd say, ?'Why?' And he'd say, ?'Well, I got in there and they found out I didn't have any insurance and the woman told me I'd have to come back another time because she'd have to check with the doctor or somebody.'
"He suffered a great deal. Yes, he did."
After awhile, as his condition deteriorated, Lonnie Lynam, carpenter extraordinaire, became all but consumed by the fear of death. Toward the end, he would sleep with a light and the television on, his mother said, "because he wanted to see something or hear something as soon as he woke up to know that he was still alive."
She said: "Some nights he'd be so frightened he'd come crawl into bed with me and just say, ?'Hold me, mom.' I just slept right with him in the hospital and just held him, you know?'"
Lonnie died on March 26 at age 45. The cause of death was cancer, aided and abetted by an absurd, unnecessary and utterly unconscionable absence of health insurance.
NYTimes
Medicare and dental care?
When?
What's your point, Miller? When I spoke on this some time ago, being self-employed and not having health insurance, you got 'cute' with me, as if I was living irresponsibly by choice. So, I don't get what you're saying here. Are you spanking this poor man, after he's dead, because he didn't have insurance?
That story or one like it, no doubt, could be repeated a dozen times a day in the US. It is a shame , no criminal, that the US with all it's wealth would continue to allow this to happen. But than of course the haves, in particularly those in government care very little for the have nots.
If you're well without insurance, that's one thing. It's a far more sorrowful affair to die ill and in pain, because of poverty.
Visit a local hospital hospice, if you'd like a dose of reality. In no way, do the poor die the death of the wealthy, even as they lay terminally ill in a hospital hospice.
You're obsessed with this health care issue, Miller, but talking about it here isn't moving it forward. Why not do something productive?
Lonnie wasn't initially poor. Being a self-employed carpenter made him money, he just opted to not spend it on health insurance. If you are self-employed and don't insure yourself, you're playing Russian Roulette.
Last week CNBC reported on the avacado farmers outside of San Diego, half of which didn't buy crop insurance.
Don't forget to include them in your Socialist Utopia.
And what about people who need eye glasses? Are you bigoted against the visually impaired?
FREE EYE GLASSES FOR EVERYONE!
Are you talking to me, Jim?
Eyeglasses incl. Optometrist is seldom part of healthcare coverage.
Eye glasses are already freely given to those in need in this country and other countries. Companies like Lens Crafters collect the used eyeglasses from their customers and donate them. For the poor, it is the eye exam to determine the specific need for the glasses that needs to be covered.
For those with jobs with employers who offer health coverage, many companies used to offer vision care but it has been eliminated as a cost cutting effort to keep other health insurance costs down.
I have never had health insurance that covered eye glasses. The pair I am wearing now I paid for out of my own pocket.
I have seen collections made for used eye glasses to go to the needy. The presecription I am currently wearing is so unusual I can't believe anyone else would find them usefull when I can no longer wear them.
Govt paid healthcare for everyone?
Does that include everything?
What wouldnt be covered?
If a woman wants breast augmentation, for cosmetic reasons having nothing to do with health, is that covered?
After all, it is surgery.
Are you willing to cover everybody, irregardless of their lifestyles?
What about people who knowingly and willingly put themselves into positions that can cause injury or death, just for fun?
People like spelunkers, skydivers, rodeo cowboys, race car drivers, etc.
Are they going to be covered?
Also, are hearing aids going to be covered?
Here's a question:
If a self-employed person has health insurance, once that person is ill and cannot keep up the payments, does the insurance continue or is it cancelled because of lack of payment?
Sometimes it's cancelled when the person gets sick, whether they've kept up their payments or not, because the insurance company, when faced with the hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of treatments that a catastrophic illness represents to them, decide to try to duck their responsibility or contract and try to prove that the illness was a pre-existing condition. I've known people who've had to prove their way into having their bills covered, though they paid every single premium religiously and on time.
I hope that if the avacado farmers and their families were starving, someone would give them food.
Just like I hope that if I were ill and in pain, someone would want to at least try to alleviate my suffering. Maybe they wouldn't think it necessary to save my life, but at least they might deign to spend a few bucks on narcotics to alleviate my suffering instead of standing over me saying, "Sucks to be you - no health insurance..."
What kind of civilization have we turned into when we can watch people suffer and justify our inaction on some kind of debit sheet?
And yes, I think glasses and hearing aids should be covered.
No elective surgeries though...
aidan wrote:Sometimes it's cancelled when the person gets sick, whether they've kept up their payments or not
so what in the hell is the point? I guess, if you should get sick, you'd better get well quickfastandinahurry before your policy is cancelled?
aidan wrote:And yes, I think glasses and hearing aids should be covered.
No elective surgeries though...
Something like " breast augmentation, for cosmetic reasons" has nothing to o with health insurences - or you pay a really high fee for a pribate one, which covers such, too.
"Health care" glasses cost here about 20 ($29) - ages ago, you got some coverage.
Hearing aids are still covered, but only the more basic models.
eoe wrote:aidan wrote:Sometimes it's cancelled when the person gets sick, whether they've kept up their payments or not
so what in the hell is the point? I guess, if you should get sick, you'd better get well quickfastandinahurry before your policy is cancelled?
They don't do it all the time, and they don't always succeed when they do- it's just something I've heard that some companies have tried to do- so on top of finding out you have this devastating illness, you're given the task of proving you didn't have it before you became insured, and then proving that you need every single solitary treatment before they'll cover it. It's just dishonest and inhumane to put that kind of stress on someone who's already dealing with what they have to deal with when they've been diagnosed with a catastrophic or terminal illness.
Yeah Walter, I don't understand why our country can't adopt the model of other industrialized nations who provide nationalized health care for their citizens.
Aidan - you have asked the question "What kind of civilization have we turned into?"
The answer is that we have turned into a bankrupt civilization. The United States is now the biggest debtor nation in human history. Since Lyndon Johnson started "The Great Society" some 50 years ago, the concept of personal responsibilty has been increasingly replaced with the concept that the Government is responsible for everyone and everything, all paid for with debased and borrowed money. Well, the chickens are now coming home to roost. The Dollar is in free fall against every major currency, and Social Security, Medicare and Medicade are all about to go belly up. And still there are demands for the Government to do even more. No matter how much the Government does, it will never be enough.
We were warned about this process over two thousand years ago:
The two daughters of the leech are "give, give" (Proverbs 30:15).
Proverbs?
Proverbs?
Couldn't you find anything in the New Testament to back you up?
Oh, nevermind... Jesus was born to an unwed mother and talked of good samaritans, leaving 99 to save 1, and mercy over sacrifice. Obviously a Democrat.
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