Patient Denied Care For Her Brain Tumor Says Insurers Want You To ‘Die Now, So We Can Save Money Later’
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on October 17th, 2009 4:36 am by HL
Patient Denied Care For Her Brain Tumor Says Insurers Want You To ‘Die Now, So We Can Save Money Later’
Yesterday, Dawn Smith — who has a brain tumor her insurer has refused to help treat — traveled from her home in Atlanta, Georgia to request a meeting with H. Edward Hanway, CEO of the health insurance giant CIGNA. She has been a victim of a series of insurance company abuses, and she wanted to […]
Yesterday, Dawn Smith — who has a brain tumor her insurer has refused to help treat — traveled from her home in Atlanta, Georgia to request a meeting with H. Edward Hanway, CEO of the health insurance giant CIGNA. She has been a victim of a series of insurance company abuses, and she wanted to give both Hanway and leaders in Congress a message. Hanway refused to meet with Smith, and instead dispatched his Cheif Medical Officer Jeff Kang to listen to her. Kang admitted that CIGNA’s complex claims unit requires serious changes but said his company would not even review the possibility of paying for her care until November.
Smith, a premiums-paying customer of CIGNA, was diagnosed with a type of brain tumor in 2005, then another one in 2007. Although CIGNA covered her brain biospy and some medication payments, she has battled with the insurer for years because of multiple denials of payment for the specialized care she needs to cure the tumors. After paying out-of-pocket for care in one instance, CIGNA nearly doubled her premiums anyway. In early October, a CIGNA representative told her that the co-pay on her anti-epileptic medicine was being hiked by more than $3,000 a year.
With the assistance of MoveOn.org, Smith has launched a nationwide campaign to not only receive the treatments she deserves from her insurance company, but to help reform the entire system and help all Americans gain quality, affordable healthcare. ThinkProgress asked Smith what message she has for Congress:
DAWN SMITH: I would encourage them to hear the stories from their citizens because, you know, a lot of people talk about the cost [to] children of our future, our grandchildren. But, there are grandchildren dying now. There are children dying now. […] I don’t understand how you can justify ‘die now, so we can save money later.’ Because that’s what it is; that’s what it boils down to.
Watch it:
CIGNA has a long history of denying care for its own policyholders. One of the most infamous cases involves Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old who died after CIGNA refused to cover her liver transplant. When Nataline’s mother requested a meeting with CIGNA officials, employees of CIGNA reportedly started heckling her from a balcony above the building’s lobby, with one giving her “the finger.”
Rather than use Smith’s or Sarkisyan’s premium dollars to pay for life-saving medical treatments, CIGNA has poured its cash into lobbying against health reform. Those premium dollars are also spent on two private luxory jets, sky-high CEO compensation (Hanway was paid $25.8 million in 2007 alone), and profits.
Fox News Reportedly Fires Liberal Analyst Marc Lamont Hill
Yesterday, Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid announced that at today’s annual News Corp. meeting, he would urge Chairman Rupert Murdoch to fire Fox News analyst Marc Lamont Hill, whom he called a “left-wing cop-killer apologist.” Hill appears as an on-air contributor on shows such as The O’Reilly Factor. The Live Feed reports that when Murdoch […]
Yesterday, Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid announced that at today’s annual News Corp. meeting, he would urge Chairman Rupert Murdoch to fire Fox News analyst Marc Lamont Hill, whom he called a “left-wing cop-killer apologist.” Hill appears as an on-air contributor on shows such as The O’Reilly Factor.
The Live Feed reports that when Murdoch was asked this question (presumably by Kincaid), he replied that Hill had already been fired:
Rupert Murdoch continued Fox News Channel’s duel with the White House on Friday while also announcing the termination of the network’s left-leaning analyst Marc Lamont Hill. […]
Murdoch also said that Hill has been fired. He revealed the move after a shareholder had raised the question of how Hill was hired, citing his “reputation of defending cop killers and racists.”
According to the report, Murdoch did not say why Hill had been fired. On his twitter feed, Hill seemed to acknowledge news of the report — saying, “Relax, y’all. Don’t believe the internet rumors” — but he didn’t directly deny that he had been fired. Neither Hill, nor Fox News have responded yet to inquiries from ThinkProgress.
But Hill appeared on the Fox Business Network just yesterday. In fact, just after radical Fox host Glenn Beck led a crusade to oust Van Jones from his position as White House clean jobs adviser, Hill defended Jones on the network:
HOST: We now know that he was involved in signing a petition that asked the question of whether or not the Bush administration had involvement in 9/11. He admits he signed it. He says…he didn’t know what he was signing. Would that have come up if he had been required to fill out this form?
HILL: Probably not, actually, because he — if we believe in good faith that he didn’t do it on purpose — and I believe that he didn’t do it on purpose — then he probably wouldn’t have put that down. And I’ll tell you why I believe he didn’t do it on purpose because he’s been very straightforward.
Hill also criticized the White House for not defending Jones. “[Obama] could have dispensed surrogates on the Sunday shows to defend Van Jones. Instead, they did nothing,” Hill complained.
Also during today’s News Corp. meeting, when asked about recent criticism from White House communications director Anita Dunn that Fox News is the “communications arm of the Republican Party,” Murdoch didn’t exactly deny it, saying her comments have “tremendously increased their ratings.”
We’ll update this post as we learn more.
