(no subject)

[ebonlock]

The next time you hear some media talking head saying they don't know what the message of OWS really is, I'd say that this one member of Occupy San Francisco says it quite well:

Miran Istina, 18, joined protests after four years of being denied life-saving bone marrow transplant for leukaemia

I'm happy to call corporations people, they just happen to be deeply sociopathic ones.

Comments

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I suspect there might be somewhat more to the story. Under California law, they can't just say "well, obviously it existed before she had insurance because she's in stage X"; there specifically has to be diagnosis or treatment in the previous six months. Second, under California and federal law, they are only able to deny for max of twelve months and usually only six, so if she was diagnosed four years ago, that doesn't make sense.

http://www.calpatientguide.org/v.html

The second point might not cover her if she was in an independently brought health plan, but I'd definitely do some investigation if I were OCSF, before using her as a spokesman.

There's also programs that cover children specifically, and it would be fairly unusual for a family to be able to consistently make a high enough income for her not to be eligible for CHIP and yet not have access to a group health plan at all, where the coverage in six months part kicks in.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

You did notice she's originally from Oregon, not California, right?

[seachanges.livejournal.com]

Also, many states offer assistance to only the poorest families. The max yearly income you can have and still be eligible for for MediCal is somewhere around 35K. And yeah, I know that from personal experience. Istina is identified as being solidly middle class, so if her family's yearly income was 40K or over, chances are they would not be eligible for most assistance programs.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Also this, yes :)

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Oregon's the same, and theirs definitely covers both group health and individual polices:

"Individual health insurance can count as pre-existing conditions only those for which you actually received (or recommended to receive) a diagnosis, medical advice, or treatment in the 6 months prior to obtaining the individual health insurance policy."

And they have even tighter limits on the length of denial for pre-existing conditions:

"· If you can buy an individual health insurance policy, there are limits on pre-existing condition exclusion periods that can be imposed. In general, if you have been uninsured for more than 63 days before your individual health insurance policy becomes effective, you may face a 6-month pre-existing condition exclusion period. "

So yeah, some aspect of the story is wrong. Doesn't mean she's lying, the reporter could have mangled it, but the story as reported does not make sense; it's not possible under the law of either state for her either to be denied as pre-existing because the condition could have been in existence but undiagnosed, or for her to continue to be denied for four years due to that pre-existing condition.

Now, they could have canceled her insurance, arguing that she concealed something, or because of some medical note she didn't know of, there's been a number of cases of that kind of shittiness, and that for one reason or another she didn't qualify for SCHIP or for the denied-coverage pools in either state. But the current set of facts does not make sense, so I'd be checking out the story before using her as a face. It's only sensible for an activist group -- there are plenty of people out there like James O'Keefe, trying to set up activists to look bad.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Ok maybe I'm misinterpreting what I'm reading in the piece or what you're saying but what I'm seeing is that she was 14 when diagnosed. Now I'm reasonably sure she didn't have a personal policy at the time this started, which means she was on one of her parents' policies, right?

Now either she or the reporter may have simplified the story to be sure, but if you're asking me to believe that people don't fall through the cracks or get completely screwed over by the insurance companies on a nearly daily basis I can introduce you to a few I know personally and recommend a great movie by Michael Moore on the subject.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Presumably, but it works the same way for every person in the family on the policy -- she has the same protections.

And I agree, health insurance companies do screw people over all the time in other ways -- they just *cannot* do so in the way the story says it happened. It's the fact that the insurance companies are so vile that I think it's important to check out the story, because if it turns out that she's a fantasist or a plant instead of the reporter mangling her story, then it provides a reason for people to go "well, people are just lying about their stories when they say they got screwed."

[psyfic.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads-up. I know way too many people that have been in this boat, including my mother and, at times, myself. Worry not, though - whoever came up with the pre-existing condition clause, and those who uphold it in the face of certain death, condemned themselves to perdition long ago.

[elenderel.livejournal.com]

Something I found posted on an OWS site: "I'll believe corporations are people the moment Rick Perry executes one."

Sorry, cheap lolz.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

I believe that quote has actually been turned into a bumper sticker :)

[elenderel.livejournal.com]

In the words of the immortal Bruce Campbell: "Groovy."