Government Denies Coverage To Mom With Leukemia

The Obamacare cheerleaders often try to demonize private health coverage by finding a story or two about ordinary Americans who were allegedly denied a life-saving procedure by a private insurer. Obama himself made such claims to promote his health care power-grab during a speech to Congress on 09 September 2009.

More and more Americans pay their premiums, only to discover that their insurance company has dropped their coverage when they get sick, or won't pay the full cost of care.

Such statements are usually backed-up by an anecdotal story of some unfortunate individual who was denied coverage or dropped from their insurance just before they were to receive some life-saving procedure. A story such as one about a young mother in Florida who has a rare form of Leukemia and was dropped by Medicare just before she was scheduled to receive a life-saving transplant. Did you catch that? GOVERNMENT canceled this woman's health care policy right before she was going to have a procedure that she would likely die without.

Diana Smith is battling a rare form of Leukemia and needs the transplant to survive. She managed to raise money to pay for it thanks to her friends and the community, but then last week she found out her Medicaid coverage was dropped – putting her operation on hold.

Smith had gone through six months of radiation and chemotherapy -- one week out of every month. She is in remission and had a donor for a transplant; being in remission is a prerequisite for the transplant. [...]

In April, Medicaid canceled her universal health care policy because her income level had risen with her son's payments – making her ineligible for the insurance program.

Well, I thought that only "evil private health insurers" did that sort of thing. You mean government is saying that private insurers are dropping people from needed coverage, using such stories to play to the emotions of the populace in order to grab more power, and all the while the government is doing exactly what they accuse the private sector of doing? Next thing you know, people will be pointing out that the government denies more claims than the private sector does. What? They really do?

Government involvement in health care is going to do nothing more than add more bureaucracy and expense to the process. It is not going to improve health care, and it is not going to prevent people from being without coverage when they need it the most. If you don't believe me, just ask Diana Smith.

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