One Year Ago Today, America’s Profit-Driven Health Care System Killed my Only Son (NSFW)

[riqster]

41. Thank you.

My son was born with a condition that required constant care and management. I was able to get him insurance throughout his life, but it was a constant battle with insurers and their cookie-pushers who questioned the decisions of his doctors and denied care pending “reviews”. I had to act as his advocate during these times, and unlike the biblical tale, David does not always beat Goliath. In fact, I hardly ever won.

And this was with an insider’s knowledge of health care and hospital finance, mind you. Someone without that information would have been even worse off than my son and I.

In the last year of his life, we were in a constant crisis mode, and the insurer continually dragged their feet, retroactively denied care, interfered, and fucked things up. One example of many: he awoke from a coma and was discharged within 6 hours. Yes, you read that right.

Shortly after that discharge, he had one medical crisis too many and we lost him. And we lost him not because we were “uninformed consumers”, not because we didn’t have a support network, not because we weren’t willing to pony up cash when necessary: no, he died because the insurer prioritized their balance sheet over the life of one of their insured.