Chris Christie’s Death Panels for “Exceptions”
Seven years ago October 16, at the age of 34, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. After six rounds of pretty harsh chemo, surgery, radiation, and five years of hormonal treatments, I am still clean of cancer.
I’m almost getting to the point where I believe I won’t have a recurrence. As I prepare to move my mother into her new retirement home, I’m beginning to believe I might outlive her.
Except.
Except for the fact that twelve years ago, when I was 29, my breast cancer was misdiagnosed. I had a palpable lump that my primary care physician agreed merited concern. But when I went to the referral doctor, he refused to send me for a mammogram. He refused to send me for an ultrasound. He refused to send me to aspirate what he assumed was "just a cyst."
That doctor, like NJ GOP Gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie, believed that women in their twenties just don’t get breast cancer. Or rather, those 5% of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer at a young age–like both Jane (diagnosed at 32) and me–are "exceptions." Exceptions for whom we should not require insurance companies to offer diagnostic tests like mammograms. Never mind that my insurance company would have had to spend far less than the $75,000 it eventually spent to treat my cancer if we had treated the lump when I first discovered it. Never mind any costs to treat the heart disease that chemo might eventually give me. Never mind the costs if–god forbid–cancer left untreated for five years shows up in the future in a vital organ or something.
Chris Christie thinks it’s smart to end the requirements on NJ insurance companies that they cover things like mammograms for the "exceptions" like me and Jane. He’s a walking death panel for "exceptions" like me and Jane.
And that’s what those of you from NJ can look forward to if he wins the gubernatorial election this November.
What a JERK he is. Condescending asshole. Good on the Corzine people for getting this out.
A string of epithets in many languages runs through my head right now.
This post needs to go to the NJ chapter of NOW so they can muster their PAC against this asshole.
Twice this week we have heard from gawddamned men who seem to think women’s illnesses are aberrations, just exceptions to the laws of nature. Like that jackass Jon Kyl; when Debbie Stabenow can slap you up, you have to be one stupid motherfricking senator.
Chris Christie is no damned different. How many times does this moron have to fuck up before the people of NJ catch a clue and ship his butt down the road?
Get that estrogen fired up, NOW-NJ, and kick Christie’s ass to the curb.
I just sent a copy of the post to NOW-NJ at NOW-NJ [at] nownj.org
Folks in NJ can contact them here:
National Organization for Women of New Jersey (NOW-NJ)
110 West State Street
Trenton, NJ 08608
Tel: 609-393-0156
Still reciting a string of epithets…
Marcy,
Stories like this really get to the essential truth of this debate. Thanks for sharing. And for $DEITY’s sake, please have the decency to stay clean of that stuff at least until I can buy you a beer!
And when women in their 20s are diagnosed with breast cancer, it tends to be much more virulent and deadly. I had a college roommate whom this happened to. She didn’t live even a year after her diagnosis.
I recently heard that colorectal cancer – once thought only to be a risk for people in their 50s and older – is now appearing more and more in younger people. People in their 30s and 40s. One of our local Chicago political reporters, Carlos Hernandez Gomez, has metastatic colorectal cancer and went on TV to talk about it because it concerns him that attention be paid to early diagnosis. When he went to a physician because he had a bloody stool, his doctor told him not to be concerned, because he was too young to have colorectal cancer.
I’m curious how other nations – the ones that seem to think that providing healthcare for all is a moral responsibility – deal with these early screening tests. Do they pay for mammograms for women in their 20s? Colorectal screens for people in their 30s?
Sparks, I can’t answer that question entirely, although I can tell you that every sexually mature woman in Canada can get a Pap smear every year for nothing. Given that cervical cancer is an almost completely preventable and/or curable disease if caught early, no one anywhere should be dying of it (and I’m writing as someone who still mourns a friend who did).
I believe that my GP would send me for any test I requested or that she suspected might be a good idea. I find it hard to believe that she would react to anyone’s bloody stools by telling him that he was too young to have a serious problem — I’ve just never heard of such a thing. I also find it hard to believe that she would think that any woman was too young to have breast cancer or ovarian cancer. I’ve sat in my oncologist’s waiting room (where ovarian cancer would be the usual) and watched beautiful young women sitting with their boyfriends, holding hands, heads together, trying not to cry, so I know that the oncologists know too.
As far as I know, here, if a doctor says it must be done, then it gets done. There are stupid doctors, mind, but fewer than there used to be, and you can always find another doctor. No doctor has ever mentioned money to me as a consideration in basic medical care, and I saw my husband through Alzheimer’s.
EW, that is such a poem of a post, in spite of the horrors of Christie. For a while, I couldn’t type through my tears at reading this:
They never tell you that you’re cured, do they … but after ten years (me), sometimes happiness breaks out (knock on wood), eh? It’s great to be alive, although it will be greater if we can stop jerks like Christie from clodhopping over science and lives for no apparent reason but … ? Well, what is his reason? I don’t see one, actually.
Chris Christie is a lump in the political system that I trust the voters of NJ will excise. Nice biopsy you’ve performed on him, EW. My blood is at the boiling point just reading how your situation was so badly mishandled at the outset.
Health insurance for wummin? What fer? When they kick the bucket, jist git another. Cain’t tell the difference anywho.
Could we be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Christie is running for governor of an Appalachian hollow that hasn’t seen the sunshine since Andrew Jackson was president? Actually, he acts more like he’s bidding to run the family business that started in Palermo.
The MSM does no citizen a favor by ignoring how brutal these priorities are. That’s not being shrill; it’s being understated.
I wouldn’t trust this man with my cocker spaniel.
These Republicans make me sick. It’s me and mine versus you and yours until they capture the corner office and then its cash orgy for all their friends and donors.
If the Poster Child for Corporate Lobbyist Bribery, Max Baucus, doesn’t deliver on a Robust Public Option that is ‘all-inclusive’ – without ‘exceptions’ – then I think We can do better by Ourselves! We can do better than the Money Party – sock-puppeting as the Democratic Party – has done by US!
Hypothetically speaking, if we left the Democratic Party, We would have the opportunity to build ourselves from the ground up – free of Corporate Greed and their ‘Special’ Interests – into a Party of the People – commonly concerned with the Quality of Our Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness.
If the Corporations can successfully block ‘all-access’ Public Healthcare, then I say We can find a better way to provide it for Ourselves.
Who knows good from bad?
We’d get to recruit Care Givers that actually focus on Giving Care, instead of milking the fucking insurance ’system.’
We could integrate the Food Growers with the Food Buyers – joining in a partnership for Healthy Living – thereby slowing the rate of sickness, in general.
We could promote a ‘Quality of Life’ Ethic from birth until death that didn’t enslave US to Heartless Corporate Greed and its Lobbyist-Purchased, Predator-Encouraging, Regulatory-Free ‘Government.’
We could educate the young to Think Critically, to Value Insight and to Collaborate in order to generate Win-Win Outcomes.
We could whole-heartedly Treasure, Respect and Serve the Constitution and the Principles of Free Peoples that it embodies, without shamefully compromising Our Integrity.
If We put together a Progressive Value Proposition based on Promoting the Highest Quality of Life for Each Individual, then We’ll have the sentiments of All But the Money Party and Their Dupes – about 70%!
Any System of ‘Healthcare’ – that builds-in – pushing ‘exceptions’ out of Doctors’ Offices, is No System of Healthcare – it’s a Racket, fixed on its own terms, at Our expense!
We can do better.
Marcy, I am thankful every day for your survival, your brilliance, your determination. Thank you for all you do.
I hope your story will be disseminated far and wide, and I hope others who’ve been affected by the Republican and Corporate Democrats’ view of “acceptable” health care will be shamed.
BTW, I was actually on the East Coast this past week [DC], and I really wanted to hop up to NYC to see your gig. But a 7 am departure time from DCA to return to Maui made making it up to NYC impossible.
Is there anywhere on the web or the YouTube a record of the conference?
1) I’m just so grateful we still have you, Marcy. All the time.
2) I hate these fuckers with a hot hating hate.
My wife spent hours on the phone to BCBS some years ago trying (and failing) to get a straight answer out of them whether they’d consider a mammogram medically necessary. NC’s state floor for policies means that mammograms only have to be covered at all for over-35s. So the phone-drone’s response was that she’d find out whether it was covered once she had it.
My mother starts a new round of chemo tomorrow. She doesn’t have to worry about pre-existing condition exclusions, rescission, annual or lifetime minimums. She doesn’t have to worry about cost. That’s because she lives in the civilised, developed world. I can’t help thinking about what she might have faced in the US.
I saw Chris Christie’s name in the title and almost didn’t read this post.
I don’t have time for Mr. Christie, but I’m glad I didn’t skip it. Emptywheel’s personal story makes it all the more clear how impressive her work here is. It is good to be reminded that after fighting for her life, emptywheel spends her time unpacking the lies, obfuscation, and misdirection of our so called leaders and public servants.
How frustrating for us that Holder or Congress have not given her subpoena powers to speed up the process of getting to the truth.
——-
BTW, I can almost understand the no mammogram at 29 (breast tissue density at such a young age makes mammograms more painful than usual; and it is more difficult to see abnormalities through denser breast tissue), but no ultrasound after 1 menstrual cycle? not to mention no ultrasound over 5 years? I don’t understand the specialist’s thinking.
Although screening test guidelines for breast cancer usually recommend a start age of 40 years for beginning annual mammograms, or a baseline mammogram in a woman’s late 30s at the earliest, those guidelines are irrelevant when you feel a lump. It is not a screening test that is required anymore. It’s a diagnostic test.
Same for colonoscopy. The age guidelines are for screening purposes. First colonoscopy at age 50 years in an asymptomatic patient (screening) or at any age in a symptomatic patient (diagnostic testing).
Nevertheless glad to read you are doing well (skdadl, too).
I wonder how Corpulent Christie will feel if he gets his wish and low and behold, insurance companies make exceptions to the type of health problems that overweight middle aged men like Christie are prone to suffer from. Maybe he would be thrilled if NJ insurers can make exceptions to prostate exams, A1C tests (to determine diabetes status), stress tests, and the like.
Your doctor was guilty of malpractice, EW. There is no way for even the most skilled MD to diagnose or rule out breast CA w/o some form of tissue diagnosis. No reputable MD i know of would argue otherwise.
I hear the stat 100,000 people die in USA annually due to medical mistakes. Who knows what the real number is, or what the number would be of people who don’t directly die but are seriously impacted in their health.
And it doesn’t boil down to being able to sue for medical malpractice. Regardless of what the GOP says, many of us are not lawsuit-happy & the thought of suing someone sounds like an enormous burden that I would want to avoid unless absolutely necessary to pay medical costs.
I wish healthcare reform would include some things other than insurance reform – like medical mistakes, evidence-based medicine, focusing on wellness rather than disease…
so if my math is correct, and those age figures are accurate, that would make you one of them there young whippersnappers
GET OFF MY LAWN
I been goin thru some changes lately …
(wink)
Typical criminally corrupt republican who don’t care for women’s rights or Health. Sen. kyl said, (sic) “I don’t get pregnant and I don’t want my money paying for somebody else’s Maternity Care.” Yes, he said that during the 4th day of the Mark up. All these politicians need to be replaced by sober, thoughtful, decent, people.
baucus, conrad, carper, lincoln and nelson – These criminally corrupt “DINO blue dogs” need primary challengers who will replace them next election.
Senators Rockefeller, Schumer, Stabenow and Widen did a great job pointing out that the Medical Industrial Complex’s contribution to the Health Care Reform is $20 Billion and in return they will get $500 Billion in TAX-PAYER FUNDED SUBSIDIES. Nice deal if you can get it. Oh, yeah the Medical Industrial Complex has bought and paid for baucus, conrad, carper, lincoln, nelson and all of the republicans. The worst Congress money can buy.
Criminally corrupt politicians are the reason the U.S. is ranked near the bottom of every catagory when ranked next to other modern, industrialized nations. Time for publically funded elections.
The Congress is back in session and doing the dirty work for the Medical Industrial Complex.
mcconnell $3.3M, hatch $2.9M, baucus $2.8M, grassley $2.7M,
lieberman $2.6M, burr $2.4M, ensign $2.4M, cornyn $2.2M, kyl $2.1M,
conrad $2.1M, cantor $1.8M, boehner $1.7M, coburn $1.2M, j wilson 800K
were paid by the Medical Industrial Complex to kill Health Care Reform.
(Source: OpenSecrets.org)
Co-Author Dr. Steffie Woolhandler of a Recent Harvard Study on Annual Deaths of America’s Uninsured, says the lack of coverage can be tied to about 45,000 deaths a year in the United States. The only way to affordably cover all Americans is through a Medicare-for-All, Single-Payer System. A Single-Payer System would generate $300-$400 billion in administrative savings annually, enough to cover all of the uninsured, and to plug the gaps in coverage for Americans with only partial coverage. Obviously, Medicare-for-all is anathema to the insurance industry. What politicians are doing is saving insurance industry profits, by sacrificing American lives.
12 Million Americans were denied health care coverage by the Medical Industrial Complex because they had a pre-existing medical condition. 12K Americans are denied insurance coverage everyday by a for-profit Insurance bureaucrat. (Source: WaPo Article 05′ by Harvard Prof. E. Warren)
Medical malpractice lawsuits are a hot topic but, are they? Tort Reform is such a “Red Herring” and is easily disproved. A 2004 report by the Congressional Budget Office said medical malpractice makes up only 2 percent of U.S. health spending. Even “significant reductions” would do little to curb health-care expenses, it concluded.
bush(43) economic speech writer david frum, at least, is willing to admit the idea about selling insurance across state lines is a crock:
New Jersey health policies cost more in large part because New Jersey hospitals and doctors charge more. If I buy a cheaper Kentucky policy that reimburses my providers at Kentucky rates, leaving me to pay the balance, how much good does that do me? And if the Kentucky policy is made to pay New Jersey rates, there vanishes my low Kentucky price.
These are some of the easily refuted arguments bought and paid for by the Medical Industrial Complex to derail any chance of their criminally massive profits being reduced.
Follow the Money: Link
Call Congress and demand, Single-Payer Health Care for All!
(Toll Free # House and Senate)
1-866-338-1015 _____ 1-866-220-0044
1-800-473-6711 _____ 1-866-311-3405
Sign Single-Payer Petition: Link
Don’t let the Medical Industrial Complex steal your Health Care from you and your family by donating huge sums of money to Crooked Politicians in order to maintain the Status Quo. Keep up the good fight.
SEMPER FI!
This is a late comment so you may not even read it, but I too had breast cancer. I was laid off in 1990 and maintained my own insurance while I freelanced. The insurance did not pay for mammograms which were about $90 at the time. I had never missed getting yearly checkups since I was 20 but I decided I’d forgo the test since I was strapped for funds and went 4 years without. In 94 when I finally decided I’d gone lone enough I was diagnosed with cancer which if it had been caught earlier would not have required $30,000 in radiation treatments. I just got a good report yesterday so I’ve made it 15 years now.