President Obama received a letter from Natoma Canfield. She’s had some trouble with her health, and her health insurance, thanks to government mandates that made her premiums skyrocket. It’s a sad story. She’s a breast cancer survivor who dropped her health insurance because it became too expensive. She wasn’t able to appear at Obama’s 2700th health care rally today because she was recently diagnosed with leukemia. The media and the Democrats hyped it as a failure of health care in America. But she couldn’t attend the rally because she was in the hospital receiving medical care. And the good news is, that hospital says Ms. Canfield won’t have to lose her home because of medical debt.
Fox News: Lyman Sornberger, executive director of patient financial services at the Cleveland Clinic, said “all indications” at the outset are that she will be considered for assistance.
“She may be eligible for state Medicaid … and/or she will be eligible for charity (care) of some form or type. … In my personal opinion, she will be eligible for something,” he said, adding that Canfield should not be worried about losing her home.
“Cleveland Clinic will not put a lien on her home,” he said.
Cleveland Clinic offers personal guides to patients like Canfield who are concerned about payment to try to match them up with programs that can provide full or partial assistance. One option is state Medicaid coverage, which Canfield did not have when she was admitted. Another is charity care that is routinely provided by the hospital, which is a nonprofit. Cleveland Clinic reported providing $99 million in charity care in 2008.
[...]
“She was very sick,” Obama said. “She expects to face more than a month of aggressive chemotherapy. She is racked with worry not only about her illness but about the costs of the tests and the treatment that she’s surely going to need to beat it.”
Anderson said her sister expects to spend at least 28 days in the hospital. She said Canfield has her own cleaning business but does not have any kind of health coverage, adding that for now nobody is paying for her stay at the Cleveland Clinic.
But Sornberger said that even if Canfield doesn’t qualify for charity care or Medicaid, “there’s probably eight to 10 options that a patient has” to find payment.
“It doesn’t stop there,” he said.
Asked for comment, a representative for Canfield’s old insurance company said “the cost of new drugs and hospital stays,” along with the trend of healthy individuals dropping coverage, are behind the latest rate increases.
America isn’t such a mean, awful place after all. Who knew?
Now, if only we could get the government, and our fellow citizens to realize that if not for mandates for coverage on elective procedures and drugs, perhaps health insurance wouldn’t be so damned expensive in the first place.
Buy your own Viagara!
More at memeorandum and Gateway Pundit.
[...] Link: Good News! Obama's Latest Health Insurance 'Victim' Won't Be … [...]
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