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p>The folks at Health Care For All do advising on insurance issues.
http://www.hcfama.org/index.cf…

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p>In terms of getting help, scattershot is the word of the day.  Get help – your state rep, your state senator, your federal representative and Senator.  The Governor.  No fooling around.  Publicity is what helps change minds.  Reach out to columnists, editorial panels and anyone who will listen.  There’s no time to “play nice.”

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p>It doesn’t do any harm to “demand excellence.”  If you accept mediocrity, your friend will get less than that.  Go for the gusto.  You’ve got nothing to lose.  

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p>I do know of a few attorney advocates, and I will reach out to them on behalf of your friend.  I don’t know how much experience they have with external appeals…but I can check.  I’ll be in touch soon.  In the meantime…pray.  I’ll be at Arch Street on Monday.  

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p>These abuses exist with regards to BCBS MA Vice President Andrew Dreyfus, too–he’s double-dipping, being paid by “non-profit” BCBS MA, a public charity so it’s heavily subsidized by us taxpayers, while he’s also being paid to be an Exec. for BCBS National that includes For-Profits. Their “business strategy” is to increase market share and profit and this is done by diverting health insurance premium dollars away from actual health care services, such as denying this man recommended cancer treatment.

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p>I’m a nurse who started out 15 years ago working in oncology and know many patients whose cancers have been cured by transplants. The state nurses association (MNA) and the state medical society (MMS) should be willing to advocate for this family, too.

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p>I suggest that you contact Mobilize for Health Care to help organize a Sit-In at BCBS MA and to do media outreach to help this patient and his family. Time is of the essence.  Personal and corporate profiteering and fortune-making by denying care to sick patients MUST STOP.

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Contact Mobilize For Health Care For All
For questions and press inquiries, call or email:
310-703-3046
info [at] mobilizeforhealthcare.org
http://mobilizeforhealthcare.o…

this from their website:

In under two weeks, well over 1000 people have signed up to participate in the sit-ins including over 700 who are willing risk arrest….

On Oct. 8, 2009, movement leaders in Chicago did the second “Patients Not Profit” sit-in of The Mobilization for Health Care for All. While dozens of supporters rallied outside Cigna’s Chicago office, the “Cigna 7″ were dragged out and arrested simply for demanding a meeting with a company representative to ask them to immediately approve the doctor-requested care that they deny their members every day to make a profit. Their courageous sacrifice deeply moved supporters and drew strong local and even national press coverage that shows that the story of this campaign is only just beginning and growing rapidly. The Chicago sit-in was covered by the Associated Press, regional television station WGN, the Chicago Tribune, public radio, Telemundo, and more.

The Mobilization is gaining momentum – and increasing attention from the media – as we build toward our national launch in just under a week. On October 15th, when people like you sit in in cities across the country we are going to prove that something big is starting in our country: the American people are finally standing up to the insurance company death panels that have been abusing us for generations. Local leaders in nearly a dozen cities including Los Angeles, Washington DC, Cleveland, Portland, and Atlanta will hold “Patients Not Profit” sit-ins next Thursday. And we’re just getting started. http://mobilizeforhealthcare.o…

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p>Maybe it’s time to add Boston to the list of Sit-Ins to Stop Insurance Co. Abuses.

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p>All things are not equal in cancer.  My son’s father died last year at 46 of metastatic breast cancer that was originally diagnosed when he was 35 years old.  Although breast cancer in men is relatively rare, about 1000 cases a year, the treatment is the same as that for women.  At the time Dan was diagnosed, our only child, a boy, was 10 months old.  After his initial surgical treatment and a chemotherapy clinical trial that eventually became the clinical treatment standard, he remained cancer-free for ten years.  He had ten healthy years, too.  He rode several times in the Pan-Mass Challenge, climbed mountains both in New Hampshire and Colorado, and hiked, by the time of his death, thousands of miles.  Then the other shoe dropped, and it was downhill rather rapidly from there; in 18 months he was gone, leaving an 11-year-old son, and me, behind.  

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p>I have to say, too, that at the end of Dan’s treatment, his chemotherapy was extraordinarily expense as his disease had metastasized to his brain and major organs.  I do remember seen one paid invoice for a prescription that cost $1500/pill–and he took a lot of them.  Every treatment option recommended by his oncologists was covered, no questions asked by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.  Dan was assigned an advocate from HPHC who helped us navigate the system so that Dan had what he needed when he needed it.  She even intervened to move appointment dates up for Dan when the wait seem emotionally too difficult and arranged for some counseling for us as a family.  I can’t even begin to calculate the bill for Dan’s treatment over the course of his disease, but I have to say I never once received a bill or a rejected service.  We were incredibly fortunate–and we know it.  Dealing with his end-stage disease with a little boy was hard enough.  Having to deal with THAT on top of everything else would have been impossible.  

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p>So many people are touched by these diseases and these stories, so the more people you and your loved one’s family reach out to, the more likely you are to be heard.  Keep trying.  

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p>The (de facto) death panels run by private insurance companies are the only death panels real or proposed.

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p>The only people who actually support death panels are those who support the existing system of private insurance.

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p>This is a serious consideration.  How long can a patient be kept from dying?  Thanks to technology, a patient can be kept on life support indefinitely.  All the time incurring costs that might save another life.  

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p>How long do we keep people alive?  I understand why the health insurance industry wants it as short as possible to keep costs down and profits up, but the government will have to tackle costs when 350 million potential patients line up for care.  Robert Reich touched on this a few years ago.  

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p>Do we want to work on the problem now or have a Terri Schiavo circus mentality for each and every patient?  Do we even consider the quality of a life?  While I’d like to be a Pollyanna and say that all life should go on forever, there is a time to say goodbye.  

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p>Carl Sandburg:

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p>    ”Our lives are like a candle in the wind.”

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p>I saw and spoke briefly with the family in question on Saturday morning, when they brought their daughter out for pre-K soccer (I coach/herd cats).  They are going ahead with the procedure regardless of what happens with coverage.  They’ve also received a lot of support and offers of help through various channels, so we’ll see.