Patient Denied Care For Her Brain Tumor Says Insurers Want You To ‘Die Now, So We Can Save Money Later’
Patient Denied Care For Her Brain Tumor Says Insurers Want You To ‘Die Now, So We Can Save Money Later’
Yesterday, Dawn Smith — who has a brain tumor her insurer has refused to help treat — traveled from her home in Atlanta, Georgia to request a meeting with H. Edward Hanway, CEO of the health insurance giant CIGNA. She has been a victim of a series of insurance company abuses, and she wanted to give both Hanway and leaders in Congress a message. Hanway refused to meet with Smith, and instead dispatched his Cheif Medical Officer Jeff Kang to listen to her. Kang admitted that CIGNA’s complex claims unit requires serious changes but said his company would not even review the possibility of paying for her care until November.
Smith, a premiums-paying customer of CIGNA, was diagnosed with a type of brain tumor in 2005, then another one in 2007. Although CIGNA covered her brain biospy and some medication payments, she has battled with the insurer for years because of multiple denials of payment for the specialized care she needs to cure the tumors. After paying out-of-pocket for care in one instance, CIGNA nearly doubled her premiums anyway. In early October, a CIGNA representative told her that the co-pay on her anti-epileptic medicine was being hiked by more than $3,000 a year.
With the assistance of MoveOn.org, Smith has launched a nationwide campaign to not only receive the treatments she deserves from her insurance company, but to help reform the entire system and help all Americans gain quality, affordable healthcare. ThinkProgress asked Smith what message she has for Congress:
DAWN SMITH: I would encourage them to hear the stories from their citizens because, you know, a lot of people talk about the cost [to] children of our future, our grandchildren. But, there are grandchildren dying now. There are children dying now. […] I don’t understand how you can justify ‘die now, so we can save money later.’ Because that’s what it is; that’s what it boils down to.
Watch it:
CIGNA has a long history of denying care for its own policyholders. One of the most infamous cases involves Nataline Sarkisyan, a 17-year-old who died after CIGNA refused to cover her liver transplant. When Nataline’s mother requested a meeting with CIGNA officials, employees of CIGNA reportedly started heckling her from a balcony above the building’s lobby, with one giving her “the finger.”
Rather than use Smith’s or Sarkisyan’s premium dollars to pay for life-saving medical treatments, CIGNA has poured its cash into lobbying against health reform. Those premium dollars are also spent on two private luxory jets, sky-high CEO compensation (Hanway was paid $25.8 million in 2007 alone), and profits.
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Oh, so Dawn Smith is just another “dog”…
INSURANCE COMPANIES = DEATH PANELS
Stay strong, Dawn, and bless you for your courage!!
~A
October 16th, 2009 at 12:04 pmSock it to them Dawn!
Leftside Annie said it all in the above post.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:05 pmWhy don’t they just use some of the money they are giving to the lobbyists or the Cigna executives, and save Dawn’s life?
October 16th, 2009 at 12:06 pmOh, yeah, that would be too much like right, and ruin their profits.
inconceivable…
but especially this:
she has battled with the insurer for years because of multiple denials of payment for the specialized care she needs to cure the tumors.
you don’t get treatment from insurers…
WHY THE HELL IS ANY HOSPITAL OR CENTER DENYING THAT TREATMENT?!!!
“FIRST, DO NO HARM.”
WHAT ABOUT THAT???
October 16th, 2009 at 12:09 pmTroil’s response: “But if she wuz in England or Canada or one o’ them other socialist fascist countries, she’d a bin dead before she even got cancer!!!!”
October 16th, 2009 at 12:10 pmBest healthcare in the world? Everyone has access to medical services? Lots of programs and charities to get help?
October 16th, 2009 at 12:17 pmThey are ghouls, profits over lives. Anyone who doesn’t support reform is supporting lining the Corporation exec’s pockets at the expense of innocent people’s lives.. BE PROUD! Yeah.. we don’t need any healthcare reform.
she’d a bin dead before she even got cancer!!!!”
Everybody knows she’d a bin aborted to allow for placenta massages for socialists what live there…
October 16th, 2009 at 12:17 pmDespite the sadness this story brings, I have to imagine the beauty that would ensue if Michael Moore got hold of this information and went after the insurance company. God that would be beautiful.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:18 pmWhat a wonderful Christian nation we live in eh?
October 16th, 2009 at 12:19 pmbelaccifer lacca says:
Everybody knows she’d a bin aborted to allow for placenta massages for socialists what live there…
October 16th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Mmmmmmmm, placenta massage….how marvelously decadent.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:20 pmAren’t there any Republicans around to tell her to just go to the Emergency Room?
October 16th, 2009 at 12:21 pmInsurance, to me, has always been a crap shoot. They are the “house” and they rarely lose. Think about it, they are “insuring” you in case you get sick BUT off on the sidelines they have put in impossible rules and hire 6 figure actuaries to study morbidity and mortality statistics to figure out how NOT to pay for illness.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:22 pmWhen Mr. Hanway shrugs of his mortal coil may he spend eternity roaming the ether like Jacob Marley, moaning while entangled in chains holding cash boxes, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, cancelled insurance policies and a little black phone book containing the home phone numbers of Senators and State Reps.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:23 pmIf her brain tumor is bothering her, she should go to the emergency room. She’d out in a jiffy.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:24 pmShorter CIGNA officer quote: “Well, if she’s going to die anyway, perhaps she should just get on with it and decrease the surplus population…”.
(with apologies to Charles Dickens, of course)
October 16th, 2009 at 12:26 pmBut if she wuz in England or Canada or one o’ them other socialist fascist countries, she’d a bin dead before she even got cancer!!!!”
October 16th, 2009 at 12:27 pmCaution: Death Panels in session!
October 16th, 2009 at 12:28 pmSHAMEFL!!! It is shameful that we allow this to occur in the United States and even more shameful that THIS is what the RepubliSCUM party is trying to protect. We need stories like this to get out EVERY DAY until our lawmakers are SHAMED into doing the right thing.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:29 pmShame on CIGNA,
for denying this woman the care they were contracted to provide.
Shame on our representatives,
October 16th, 2009 at 12:29 pmfor embracing a corrupt lobbyist system
that embraces greed, and scorns compassion.
“Denying coverage to all is makes our healthcare system the best in the world. It’s the American way.” /end snark
Give ‘em Hell Dawn Smith. Nobody should die because they got denied by the HIPs in the United States. Cigna ought to be ashamed of themselves.
OT:
WASHINGTON — Businesses in the South and Southwest benefited most from the first federal contracts awarded under President Barack Obama’s stimulus program, according to initial data released by a government oversight board. Military construction and environmental cleanup contributed to a boost of about 30,000 jobs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/16/AR2009101600227.html
October 16th, 2009 at 12:29 pmI’m so angry I misspelled “SHAMEFUL”.
These insurance MONSTERS need to be brought to their knees for all the suffering and heartache they have caused.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:32 pmHas anyone ever got the idea of forming a non-profit healthcare insurance organization as an alternative to these for profit death panel providers known as Death Inc?
And compete against those murderers head on???
No denial of coverage even if your condition is pre-existing no matter how much it will cost for coverage.
Cheap premiums, etc…
?
October 16th, 2009 at 12:35 pmCapitalism prioritizes profit over people.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:37 pmHalloween costume:
October 16th, 2009 at 12:38 pmInsurance executive
Dress up the kiddies!
Shorter Cigna:
“We just want to kill you for profit.”
October 16th, 2009 at 12:39 pmIntrepid says:
Shorter Cigna:
“We just want to kill you for profit.”
This is wib awarmist stuff.
Farmers kill cows for profit. Whiee the hypocwisy, WIB?
October 16th, 2009 at 12:43 pmCheeseFlap, I’m so happy you’re back. :-)
October 16th, 2009 at 12:47 pmCIG smokes their patients.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:47 pmGreed works–and this is how it works.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:51 pmstewarjt: The corporate negotiation and guarantees of subsidies we have been observing in the senate are corporatist, not capitalist.
October 16th, 2009 at 12:59 pmAs long as our government serves up it’s citizens as guaranteed product for corporate healthcare’s profit, our capitalist free market cannot function properly.
you is a smart one okie dokie. Well said post at 30.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:03 pmWhat ever happened to the basic idea of a contract? Why do insurance companies get to rewrite their side whenever they feel like it yet the insured only gets to make changes once a year?
October 16th, 2009 at 1:08 pmOT – I am very uncomfortable with President Obama speaking in Texas with GHW Bush today. Do they not know that GHW was in Dallas when JFK was shot. I still believe he is at the root of all that has gone bad since that day.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:09 pmIn order to understand why claims are denied, you have to understand the corporate reasoning. The management has done a cost benefit analysis of the denials. For every 100 claims that are denied, only a small percentage are appealed. Many of these claims are legitimate, but the denials are intended to stall payment with the idea that these people will go away. This tactic works and saves the company millions of dollars. The cost benefit analysis takes into account the payment of the claims, administrative costs and potential lawsuits.
All states regulate insurance companies. Each state has a good faith provision written into its laws. This doctrine allows the courts to award punitive damages when a company unreasonably refuses to pay a claim. The provision is invoked when it is plainly obvious the claim should have been paid and the insurance company has no defense. The state insurance commissioners have a right to impose these type of sanctions as well as class action lawsuits. However, these insurance commissioners enforcement of these penalties is directly related to how much influence the insurance company has with the regulators. In some states, next to nothing gets done. In most states there are actions that are brought and the penalties are assessed, but not enough to deter the insurance companies from engaging in the conduct.
This is why Congress needs to repeal antitrust for the insurance companies and step in to regulate. The states are not doing much and the abuses continue to grow. A federal regulatory agency would be able to bring large class actions for customers for the whole country rather than specific states. The states will still be free to regulate but only if their rules are stricter than the federal minimum requirements. Insurance companies will lose their influence in many states.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:15 pmI worked for CIGNA for a little over 10 years.
I used to rephrase their motto to a “Business of Scaring“, which was more appropriate than a “Business of Caring”.
I didn’t leave on very good terms, needless to say. Can’t wait to see if I ever get my piddly diddly pension from them (which, of course, they – like most corporations – no longer have as a benefit).
October 16th, 2009 at 1:15 pmPlease don’t vote for any repiggies in November, even for local office.
They have all whored themselves out to corporate interests, and they have utterly abandoned the citizenry to its own devices.
There are a few Dems as well that need to be tossed on to the trash heap.
Don’t let some repiggie talk you into voting for him/her for mayor or for city council this fall, no matter how sweet and sane and reasonable they may appear to be.
They are all party to this sort of stuff that the health insurance cabal promotes.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:19 pmThanks, hellinabucket.
I’ve managed to keep my small retail store in business through the changing economies, in a market where small family businesses used to dominate. Our industry lobbyists always cater to the big guys, whose first allegiance is to wall street. The house and senate, by way of corporate lobbying, have legislated the majority of small businesses out of competition.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:20 pmJudging capitalism requires properly understanding its normal, profitable operation. The term corporatist has little if any relevance to my point.
Capitalism functions “properly” when a 93 year old man freezes to death because his electricity and heat was shut off for unpaid bills. Capitalism functions “properly” when Indians die of hunger though there is plenty of food around. Capitalism functions properly when over 400,000 US residents die per year from smoking related causes according to Jeffrey Reiman of American University. Capitalism functions “properly” when a young woman college graduate working two jobs dies because she delayed getting medical treatment because she couldn’t afford insurance.
That is your “free” market capitalism working properly.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:29 pmIt’s impossible to understand how Repubs (& a few Dems) support this sort of monstrous company that promises to help people until help is needed, then the company tosses them out like garbage.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:33 pmI just don’t understand..why is it that the States Attorney Generals and Prosecutors are not charging these companies with murder? If I, or anyone else refused to give a sick relative medical attention and that person died, they would be all over me.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:42 pmThese companies are committing MURDER…plain and simple.
One of these days someone who has been denied necessary medical treatment is going to pick up a gun, go to the offices of his insurer, and start shooting. The media will drone on about the tragedy, but millions of angry Americans will privately applaud, especially if he takes out the CEO.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:52 pmVery sad, but becoming all too common.
Of course, I’d wager that all of us know someone who’s been though similar hassles with their insurance company. I knew a person who got stalled and delayed, and then magically, she got approved right after the window of opportunity (healthwise) had passed and the treatments would be too late. She died.
I know another who had to fight tooth and nail to get some cancer treatments approved. Thankfully she finally did, and the treatments were 100% successful.
But as some other postes have noted (and I’m reminded of the plot to The Rainmaker), this is a matter of stats and odds. Deny the claims, even if they’re valid. Some percentage won’t fight it, so that’s pure profit. Of those that do fight it make them jump through a lot of hoops. At each round that the patient gives up, it’s a win for the insurance company and more money in their pocket to waste on stupid things.
It’s vile and disgusting. How anyone can defend the status quo is beyond me.
October 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pmCigna would appear to be ripe for being run over by regulators, if there were any. They had of $18 Billion in revenues last year, paid their CEO over $25 Million, and still managed to screw Dawn Smith and the Sarkisyans, among many others; their customer service ratings for the CA HMO is not very good. They’re probably not the worst, but they’re below average.
It would be interesting to know how many subscribers, by number of individuals and number of people in group plans, Cigna has in the states where it operates and their percentage of the insured pool nationwide is. They’re screwing a lot of people out of a lot of money for lousy service (when they’re not actively being a DEATH PANEL), at least in CA. Looks like they’re getting a return of about $580,000 in revenue per employee, so it would also be interesting to know what their profit margin is per dollar, and what their salary structure looks like. From a few figures like that, including items like overhead, we could infer how much is actually being put into the health care system by this company. (More research needed, eh?)
October 16th, 2009 at 2:37 pmVirtual Pebble says:
Cigna would appear to be ripe for being run over by regulators, if there were any.
How many news stories have you read where a health insurance company was assessed large fines by a state insurance commission for wrongful denial of claims? Therein lies the problem.
October 16th, 2009 at 3:01 pm.
HEALTH INSURANCE CORPORATIONS DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR HEALTH…
… THEY CARE ABOUT THEIR BOTTOM LINE/CEO PROFITS!
.
October 16th, 2009 at 3:33 pm.
11 arrested in Boston calling for health care for all!
Friday, October 16, 2009
Protest leads to arrest of 11
By Matthew Kaplan | The Daily News Tribune
http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org/2009/10/16/11-arrested-in-boston-calling-for-health-care-for-all/
October 16th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
My love and thoughts go out to Dawn.
It does NOT take Cigna ’til November to ca$h our premium check$ !
As Rachel Maddow revealed about one insurance company she recently investigatged, they just decided to stop paying for ALL people suffering
October 16th, 2009 at 3:47 pma certain condition to avoid paying for one. I have to take a walk now.
.
#24 cheeseflap,
WONDERFUL!
The Health Insurance CEO is the “NEW” Death!
.
October 16th, 2009 at 3:48 pmAnd now it’s settled for me.
I’ll be switching to Kaiser next month during my open enrollment. I love my current Doctor, but I have Cigna through my employer. No more. I was on the fence, but I can no longer allow my money to pay for this shit.
October 16th, 2009 at 4:00 pmThis is fuc*ing sick. Many years ago, one of my best freinds began getting horrendous headaches, he was a college professor so he had insurance – and he was married to a surgeon, so he had access to some pretty great care.
When it was discovered he had a brain tumor he was given less than a year to live. They traveled for a few months and when he they came back he was given hospice care at home.
He died within a year.
Honestly, if they torched every home of every insurance exec. and siezed all their assets and threw them out on the streets, it would be alright by me.
October 16th, 2009 at 5:58 pm@ 24…
Cheeseflap, ya gotta stop peddling that kinda fear. Holy crap, you’ll give some Republipimp a heart attack when he opens the door to play a dirty trick on some tyke.
(snark)
But very well put.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:16 pmHealthcare insurance companies are just like any for-profit company and are in business to make a profit for their shareholders. Congress can’t reform the insurance companies. The only thing that Congress should be doing is to pass a one line bill that states that no profit can be made by insurance companies or hospitals when it comes to a persons health.
October 16th, 2009 at 7:47 pmEven the regular trolls can’t defend this one.
October 16th, 2009 at 8:56 pm” if they torched every home of every insurance exec. and siezed all their assets and threw them out on the streets, it would be alright by me.”
This doesn’t go far enough. CEO’s and board of directors heads on pikes, literally. Their families forced to survive on minimum wages. Their property and money used to pay for health care for all of the clients who were denied coverage.
This would be a fitting solution to this abominable practice.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:22 pmDawn,
Stay Strong and know that you are not alone!
Getting bumper stickers and handing them out for free
INSURANCE COMPANIES = DEATH PANELS
HR676
I have Cigna and I would give it up for HONEST Universal Health Care in a minute. Everybody IN NO BODY OUT!
Dawn this is not for you to read-
EVERYONE else – cut a widow a break and hear my plea for you to do something, anything, this could be you.
My husband and the father of our two young children died from Cancer last year and we had Cigna through his Union – they had the nerve to question the Oxygen that his doctor prescribed for his use after he was down to one LUNG after having had surgery to remove the other lung.
I can tell you about DEATH PANEL first hand also – many conversations with cigna begging for coverage and in tears the entire time. SEVERAL Times the cigna employees cried with me because I would not let them off the hook and I pressured them to tell me what they would do if they were me and it was their husband that needed oxygen, drugs, or an MRI. They admitted that they too were scared and some only worked for cigna because they too needed insurance themselves for their families. Profitcare instead of healthcare for all is a time period in history that will be infamous. There just needs to be someone still around healthy enough to write the history books when this is all over.
Healthcare NOT WARFARE is not just a slogan it is true except not only the money aspect of costly war is letting our best US hospital close but attention to the wars going on is taking our attention away from the WAR in the US on not only poor people without insurance but on those of us with insurance that we thought would protect us and provide for us in a time of injury or disease.
We are hostages in the US to a system that keeps us sicker than citizens in over 40 other countries.
My husband gave his life in this war against the insurance companies. I will tell you his story in a second but ask yourself other than reading this posting ….What are YOU going to do to help DAWN today?
October 17th, 2009 at 11:49 pmDon’t let the DEATH PANEL Cigna get her like it got my husband.
Get reporters to tell her story on the major networks and let the politicians know about her. America EVENTUALLY will do the right thing for it’s citizens but for the moment there are those of us that have been in the battlegrounds and it is not fair that the unaffected are being kept in the dark.
For 30 years my husbands biggest prideful thing was that he had a great job for a union that he loved going to work and he NEVER TOOK any SICK DAYS and He was so very proud that he was able to provide for us what he had been told all that time was the best healthcare benefits in the Country.
All this was Prior to my husband being told he had stage 4 cancer on a Sunday emergency trip to our Local ER.
He had never had a sick day in his life! This could happen to you. Two months into his being diagnosed with cancer he had to totally question the entire bill of goods he/we had been sold regarding Cigna Health Insurance. We had watched sicko prior to his getting cancer and it was hard to believe that it was all true about healthcare and then when he got sick we found out REAL FAST that it was even worse than the movie could ever capture. It could happen to you tomorrow – you could find out your Dawn or like my husband you could get cancer and have to spend more time on the phone fighting for coverage of Oxygen, medicine, tests like MRI’s and anything else they can say NO to a couple of dozen times to until your eventually dead or you are to sick to care anymore about earthly things like paperwork or bills.
This is what they hope will happen – statistically they know it will happen, the more they say NO the quicker you will die.
If you are currently not sick do something today. Read your insurance contracts – that is if you can understand them.
Insurance=Death Panels.
With Insurance There is no HEALTH or CARE just profits.
How many of you have had to call around trying to find even ONE provider that will take your plan – imagine trying to do this when your injured or terminally ill with no energy left to even lift your self to the bathroom or to eat? OK so you think you have a family or partner to do it, do you truly want them to have to fight with your insurance company getting themselves sick or do you want to spend what time you have left on earth holding your hand and being there for each other? CIGNA shame on all your employees that do not rise up and say “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH” I can not morally do this anymore to people and I need Universal healthcare for myself and my family also. I do not want them to ever have to get one of these disgusting letters of phone calls that I am forced to send out each day to unsuspecting sick people.
AS an employee of CIGNA I want DAWN to get the care her doctors say she needs. It is not for us to get get between doctors and patients.
test
October 18th, 2009 at 1:10 pmgo for it
October 18th, 2009 at 1:11 pmggg
October 18th, 2009 at 1:38 pm222
October 18th, 2009 at 2:15 pmmmm
October 18th, 2009 at 5:35 pmjjjjjjj
October 18th, 2009 at 6:11 pmFor every story we hear like Dawn’s there’s probably another 1000 we’ll never hear about. The death panels that the GOP have accused the Obama Administration of having in the public option are in fact, a reality in the private insurance world. It would be bad enough if they decided you didn’t have a chance to live and they were going to discontinue your coverage. But it’s worse, their decision to cover you or not, is based on how it will affect their profits. This is so immoral, so fundamentally wrong that it almost defies comprehension. Who gives them the right to decide who lives and who dies?? Frankly, I were Dawn I would push have them tried for attempted murder because that’s EXACTLY what it is.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:01 pmIn a statement to ABC 7 News Cigna said, “They have approved and covered many diagnostic tests for services for the evaluation and treatment of her benign and stable brain tumor by a prominent medical center in her hometown. burun estetigi ” What she wanted to do was go to the Cleveland Clinic – however, they are not in her network. gögüs büyütme In 2005, doctors found a brain tumor in Smith. gögüs estetigi Two years later, they discovered another one. They are treatable tumors but at this point, Smith has yet to undergo treatment. gögüs küçültme She’s only had a biopsy and been prescribed pain medication for the shooting pain she experiences daily through her body. vajina estetigi Her hope is at the Cleveland Clinic, a place Cigna denied her because it’s out of network. lazer epilasyon At this point, she can’t be seen there unless she pays on her own. karin germe estetigi Cigna originally denied her claims, giving no reason other than “out of network estetik“. This wasn’t a decision made by a doctor – it was a decision made by a for-profit insurance company that has a record of denying claims for months, only to reverse course later, or approving procedures then coming up with excuses not to pay. karin germe estetigi BTW, as has happened before when someone went public with their story, Cigna has reversed course and agreed to pay for the treatment – with no reason given for their previous denials. saç ekimi It is odd how these people here who do not believe in telling the future, are telling the future here, saying what the new system will and will not approve.
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:32 am