The Baumgarten Report

The following is an e-mail sent by a friend of mine to family and friends that addresses health care costs and how a diagnosis of cancer in her teen aged son while they were vacationing in Italy impacted them far beyond what they’d ever imagined.

Char cites her family’s experience as reason to vote for Barack Obama. She is graciously permitting me to post it. Please take the time to read it and, if so motivated, comment.

Dear friends and family,

Our 15-year-old son went through a grueling regimen of chemotherapy just one year ago this week for a rare type of lymphoma. He’s now thriving and healthy. But our economy and our personal finances are not.

We need health care cost reform.

Jake was treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, less than an hour from our house (in good traffic). We thought we had a good health insurance plan, but unfortunately we were “out-of-network.”

Since Jake had a very rare form of lymphoma, Burkitt’s, and only a handful of cases are seen each year even at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, home to probably THE best pediatric cancer treatment center in the world, we weren’t about to take him to a local hospital that was in-network.

After the insurance payments, we owed more than $110,000 to the hospital and physician’s group. Some payments seemed arbitrary; the insurance company got to set the amount they would pay which they considered “usual and customary” costs for each procedure and chemo drug. We owed the remainder. We filed many many appeals and even won a few. Ultimately we played let’s make a deal with the hospital and they cut our bill in about half so we owe about $57,000.

Being healthy is, of course, priceless. But is it fair that we happen to be out-of-network because we have a certain type of insurance and not another?

Bill’s last job had Blue Cross Blue Shield. That company was in-network and our bill would have been zero. Is it fair that the health insurance company itself sets the rate at which it will pay?

Certain reimbursements have dropped dramatically in the last three years such as for CAT and PET scans. Jake has had many. Only once was a treatment held up because the insurance company wouldn’t pay, but many patients face that reality every day.

We believe that Obama’s plan would cover many more families and children than McCain’s. McCain’s plan of giving $5000 to every family to offset health care plan costs would be a drop in the bucket to what we needed. We pay more than $300 a month for the policy and pay $1000 deductible for each of us. McCain’s plan ultimately encourages companies to drop their employees’ insurance plans which will make health care for some employees and for those who have been ill, like Jake, pay far more.

Obama is committed to insuring that no one will ever be denied health care insurance coverage due to pre-existing conditions (something Jake will face all his life now) and that the health plan is as good as the one that covers the families of people in Congress.

If for no other reason (and there are many other good reasons) we encourage you to vote for Barack Obama and vote for health care reform!

No one ever thinks a catastrophic illness will happen to them, we didn’t either.

Jake received excellent care in Italy under its national health care program for 24 nights. The cost of the care was less than one night at Memorial Sloan Kettering. And he received fabulous health care at MSKCC, but the cost and stress on families is way too high.

Please go to vote and please consider our story and vote for Barack Obama. Please feel free to forward this to friends.

And, again, thanks to all of you for your prayers, food, support, love and blood, in the last year! We love you all and, even if you vote for the other side, we hope you will think about the changes that are needed to insure that all children, and adults have access to adequate health care in this country.

Best,

Char