I am a HUGE breast cancer awareness advocate and would like to share a story with you
In June 2003, Shirley Loewe went to Good Shepherd Medical Center in Longview, Texas with a softball=sized lump in her breast and was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer. She didn't know it, but she had just made a big mistake.
Ms. Loewe was uninsured. Under federal law, she could have gotten Medicaid coverage-and saved herself a lot of hardship- if she'd gone to a different clinic less than a half-mile away. But by walking through Good Shepard's doors, Ms. Loewe unwittingly let that opportunity slip and embarked on a four-year journey through the Byzantine U.S. health-care system.
It was an odyssey that would take her to five hospitals, two clinics, two charitable organizations, and two nursing homes in two states. She was denied assistance or care at least six times along the way, for reasons that ranged from not being poor enough to not being sick enough.
Ms. Loewe eventually got treatment, but at personal cost and great aggravation. To qualify for charity assistance, she had to reduce her $15,000-a-year income as a hairdresser by cutting back on her work hours and giving up her home. Later, she lucked into first-class care thanks to a serendipitous encounter at a Little League game.
Ms. Loewe is one of THOUSANDS of woman who get caught in a loophole in the Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention and Treatment Act each year. Under this little-known law passed by Congress in 2000, uninsured women under age 65 who are diagnosed with breast or cervical cancer can have their treatment covered by Medicaid even if they do not meet all of its eligibility requirements.
But this law gives states an escape hatch. Rather than giving coverage to all comers, states can choose to cover only those diagnosed at clinics that get funding from a federal cancer-detection program. Texas chose the more restrictive option.
After cancer activist groups lobbied its legislator, Texas recently changed its version of the law to cover women diagnosed at any health care provider starting September 1. But 21 states continue to exclude patients diagnosed outside of the federal cancer-detection program.
YOU CAN HELP! Please go to
http://komenpolicy.org/campaign/treatment_hp
and sign the petition.
This petition will be sent to your congressman, senators, and governors.
For the health of yourself, your friends, your family, and women everywhere, please sign this petition. I did.
