Our “First Class” Healthcare System Bankrupts Local Family
The D&C had this heart-wrenching tale on the front page yesterday, as it should be:
Rochester family battles insurers, cancer
Ten years ago, this wasn’t their life.
They weren’t some poster family for America’s broken health care system. They didn’t have bankruptcy hearings, insurance battles, $100,000 in unpaid bills. They weren’t tracking their smashed credit while counting every day that Ian, Evan, Jacqueline and Madeline had with their dad.
They were, back then, just the Funchesses from Rochester, young, educated, finances in order.
Then the dad got recurring forms of cancer, and their supposedly “solid” insurance passed on much of the cost of treatment to the family.
Melanie went back to work full time in 2003 as a nutrition instructor, and later switched to an advocacy job with the Mental Health Association. After applying twice for Social Security disability, they secured Medicare coverage, figured out what that didn’t cover, and purchased a Medigap plan to make up the difference.
But in 2005, with unpaid bills totaling nearly $100,000, they filed for bankruptcy. Melanie sat through court, listening to a stream of stories about how people had lost all their money.
“I’m sitting there thinking about all these people having all this stuff, and I was like, where did my American dream go? We worked hard, we made good choices. … I felt really, really hurt. No matter how much we tried, it didn’t work for us.”
Does it freak out anyone reading this that you are one layoff or big health problem away from bankruptcy? No matter how good your choices?
We can fix this, but your voice needs to be heard. Come to the Health Care Forum with John Conyers and Eric Massa on Saturday evening.
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