One of the recurring themes in the health care debate is the plight of the uninsured American who is given a death sentence because he or she can’t afford to buy insurance and ends up with a major illness.  These people, the rhetoric goes, need a safety net (provided by government) to ensure that nobody is forced to die because they can’t afford the care they need.  The blogosphere has been filled with anecdotes of people losing coverage when they get cancer or some other major illness.  Conservatives have pointed out that there is already a safety net: America’s emergency rooms.  I recently heard about another safety net that already exists, in the form of an anecdote about an uninsured husband and wife who actually got coverage after finding out that the wife had cancer.

The couple in question is a classic couple from Anytown, USA.  The husband owns his own small business, the wife is primarily a mom to their 2.3 children and a dog.  They have enough money to pay the bills and have some fun, but the family isn’t particularly wealthy.  Neither one had employer provided insurance, and they made the decision to not take the plunge with an individual plan.  After all, they are young, healthy, and active; and adding an insurance payment would have put some strain on the family budget.  Put simply, they are the embodiment of the average uninsured American.

Then one day, the wife falls unconscious.  Her husband calls 911 and she’s taken to the emergency room, where she gets a bunch of testing done, more or less all on the hospital’s dime.  The safety net covered exams come back and say that she has a cancerous tumor.  A big one.

From everything President Obama, the Democrats in Congress, and the media have told me, this is the point where I’m supposed to be thinking, “She’s screwed.”  This story is a bit more interesting.

Instead of going home to die, her and her husband take a trip to their local Medicaid office to talk to someone there about getting some help.  An employee there takes a look at their bank account, and recommends a strategic withdrawal to bring the balance below the magical amount required by regulation.  Since the husband owns his own business, they also ask for some business records; mostly copies of the old bills that he’s paid to prove that the company is legit.  Though his paperwork was in a state of disaster, the husband managed to cobble together enough bills to prove what he needed to prove.

Medicaid said they would cover her cancer.

Shortly thereafter, she went in for surgery at one of the best hospitals in the region under the care of a nationally known surgeon.  The report from surgery was everything positive; it’s likely that she will recover quickly and respond well to treatment with radiation, chemo, or both.  Far from screwed, she stands a good chance of being cured.

The safety net worked.  Even without health care reform, the life of at least one uninsured American — who managed to get coverage in a situation where most people talk about losing it — was saved.

Tags: healthcare