The price of political posturing on health care
In my last year of medical school I was part of a surgical team and met Tom, a 54-year-old farmhand. Tom’s skin was dark and leathery from years of planting and harvesting wheat, soybeans and sunflowers in the sun. He came to us with severe belly pain, nausea, vomiting and the inability to use the bathroom for roughly a week. After a thorough assessment and numerous tests the team found that Tom had a mass in his bladder.
We held our collective breath, but our worst fears were realized: Tom had cancer.
The advanced stage of his cancer meant that he needed surgery and radiation to even have a chance at cure. However, he was uninsured, and his medical bills were already in the tens of thousands of dollars from this admission alone. Tom was left with two options: bankruptcy or death.
It is appalling and tragic that anyone in our state and great nation would have to face this decision. Unfortunately, Tom is one of many patients who I have seen suffer from a system that leaves behind millions. Tom takes personal responsibility for himself and his health. He does not smoke (one of the biggest risk factors for bladder cancer), lives an active lifestyle, works hard every day at a job that contributes to society, and pays his taxes. As a farm worker he has worked his entire life to feed families across Kansas and the United States. His work ethic, personal responsibility and humility are some of the qualities that make me proud to be from Kansas.
However, when Tom needed help, he was left on his own.
Tom, along with tens of millions of Americans, will benefit from the insurance expansions in the new health reform law, popularly known as “Obamacare,” once it is enacted in 2014. However, with Kansas and many other states dragging their feet, millions will continue to die, suffer and be bankrupted.
Gov. Sam Brownback and 15 other governors refuse to accept federal dollars for the establishment of a health insurance exchange that would cover 15 million people across the country.
Despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law and that President Barack Obama was re-elected (not to mention, former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebilieus is heading the implementation as the Secretary of Health and Human Services), Brownback continues his political posturing at the expense of Kansans’ lives and livelihood.
Tom chose to fight his cancer, but he mortgaged his future and his family’s. Tom and his family sold the house, spent their savings, and depleted their children’s college funds to treat his cancer. Now, we can do nothing but wait to see if the treatment is successful. Making Kansans choose between the care for a loved one and the family’s future is avoidable and inexcusable with the new health reform law.
Brownback can work to prevent others from facing a similar fate if he would step down from this reckless political posturing and serve the best interests of Kansans.
*Branden W. Comfort is a fourth-year medical student at the University of Kansas and has a master’s of public health from Harvard School of Public Health. The views expressed are his own. He lives in Wichita. *
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 2 weeks agoWhy did Tom choose not to purchase insurance????
Lance Loewenstein
Kansas City
4 months, 2 weeks agoAnd isn’t that the central fail of Obamacare? When given the choice to spend their money on health insurance or, say, a new Mustang payment, a good percentage of healthy people will not buy it. A $95.00 individual mandate penalty does not an individual mandate make.
This page used to have editors that would have pointed out the central fail of the good doctor’s essay - it’s not like President Obama invented health insurance. It has been available for anyone to buy, if they had the personal responsibility to do so. (and, admittedly, no pre-conditions)
Mark Hastert
4 months, 2 weeks ago“Why did Tom choose not to purchase insurance?”
The better question is why aren’t you, GH? That’s a rhetorical question, we all know you’re on the dole.
“It has been available for anyone to buy, if they had the personal responsibility to do so.”
No, sorry. Apparently the “central fail” is that there are people who don’t know that not everyone can buy health insurance.
George Harris
Kansas City
4 months, 2 weeks agoWe don’t know whether Tom could have gotten insurance on the private market. However, both Missouri and Kansas have high risk pools through which he would have been eligible to buy insurance, though preexisting conditions would likely have been excluded for one year. Tom may or may not have known about the availability of the high risk pools. And he may or may not have had enough money to pay for this expensive option. Regardless, it’s a sad outcome.
John Hall
4 months, 2 weeks agoThank God for physicians-in-training like Branden W Comfort. John C Hall MD
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 2 weeks agoWell, George, Hastert obviously needs your wisdom, since he has REPEATEDLY said not everyone can get insurance, which are you CORRECTLY STATE, is more lib BS…..
Thank you George for trying to educate the illiterate….
Dan Lauer
4 months, 2 weeks agoCould someone explain the “insurance expansions” described in this column which sound so wonderful (and free). I’ve heard folks like Tom who decline to purchase health insurance branded as “free riders” by Obamacare advocates. In fact, Tom and others like him, who in the past could choose not to purchase health insurance, have been cast as the villians by Obamacare lovers, not as the unfortunate victims described in this column.
George Harris
Kansas City
4 months, 2 weeks agoDan, I’m not sure I understand your question. Tom’s situation isn’t well explained in the column, in my opinion. If he has enough money to cover his hospital costs, then he isn’t a “free rider” but rather a self-payer. If he doesn’t have enough money and the hospital provides treatment without reimbursement, then he is a “free rider.” That is, the hospital will charge other people more to make up for the losses incurred by treating Tom. In many cases, hospitals will provide stabilizing treatment only, as required by law, but will not provide ongoing treatment, as would be needed for most cancer patients. It is estimated that the insured pay $1,000 more annually to cover the costs of the uninsured who use emergency medical care. The hope is that Obamacare will get more people into paying status so that hospitals will provide less unreimbursed care. We’ll see.
Dan Lauer
4 months, 2 weeks agoThe writer states that “Tom, along with tens of millions of Americans, will benefit from the insurance expansions in the new health reform law, popularly known as “Obamacare,” once it is enacted in 2014”
Who are they millions who will benefit and how?
The writer is making specific claims..can those claims be clarified and supported or is it just hope?