If nothing else describes the unfairness and craziness of our profit-driven healthcare system, I don’t know what does. From Single Payer Action:
Ronald Flanagan is a Vietnam Vet in Thornton, Colorado.
Ronald and his wife Frances have health insurance from Ceridian Cobra Services.
Their month premium – $328.69.
Frances went on line to pay their monthly premium.
By accident, she types in $328.67.
Two cents short.
Guess what our pals at Ceridian did?
Exactly.
Dropped the policy.
It came at a bad time for the Flanagans.
And a good time for Ceridian.
Ron has been fighting multiple myeloma – a cancer of the bone marrow – since September 2008.
“The nurses were just getting ready to do the biopsy when my wife popped into the office and told them, ‘Stop. We don’t have any insurance,’” Ron told ABC News 7 in Denver.
“And that’s when they let me know that we no longer had insurance on account of the two cents, and they canceled us,” Frances said. “Since then, I’ve been depressed. I haven’t been able to hardly do anything. As you can see, we still have our Christmas decorations up. So it’s been hard on me.”
Read the rest of the essay by clicking here. Fortunately for Mr. Flanagan, the massive media coverage surrounding his case prompted Ceridian to quickly restore his coverage. But, the point is, why should Americans have to go through this sort of nonsense? The answer is, no one should. And people wouldn’t have to if we simply put insurance companies like Ceridian out of the healthcare business and cover everyone through Medicare. Watch the Flanagans being interviewed below:
Sylvia@californiaonecare.org