Word: keepeing
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There was at least one thing we didn't have to worry about, Haile assured me. Pat's kidney doctor, Peter Smolens, would keep treating him even if he couldn't pay. Smolens, a thin, soft-spoken man, later told me that about 10% of his patients have inadequate insurance or none at all. He has agonized with some as they struggled with hard choices, like whether to have a hospital biopsy or pay their mortgage. As a physician, he said, "you just see them. You know you're not going to get paid...
...grateful as we were for Smolens' forbearance, that still left us with the question of how to keep up with the rapidly mounting bills for drugs and lab work. Haile put us in touch with B.J. Smith, a social worker at the center. Patient and reassuring, Smith turned out to be the angel we needed. She had only recently returned to work after taking off seven years to stay home with her two children. The first thing she advised Pat was to start paying his bills, all of them, even if it meant putting down only a few dollars...
There's another paradox: if Pat gets sick enough to need dialysis, as he well may, the Federal Government will pick up those staggering costs under the Medicare program for end-stage renal disease. But until that point is reached - and the goal is to keep him from getting there - his options are limited. Now that he is sick, it would be nearly impossible for him to purchase another insurance policy on the individual market. Since he lives independently and holds a job, it would be difficult for him to qualify for Social Security disability benefits. While Texas, like...
...cancer is one of the five most costly medical conditions in the U.S., according to the ACS - or because the patient is struggling to maintain coverage in the face of rising premiums and accumulating co-pay costs. Some, having been forced by illness to stop working, must struggle to keep their employer-sponsored coverage through COBRA rules. Others are looking for access to sometimes pricey state-funded high-risk pools, and 72% of the callers are simply uninsured. So intense and complex is the insurance issue that in 2004 the ACS launched the Health Insurance Assistance Service (HIAS) within...
...ignore the leftover business from the Bush era. He ought to be taking heat for punting - not only on the earmarks, but on the other $402 billion worth of government spending. But his critics, from McCain on the Senate floor to Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, keep harping on earmarks and almost nothing else...