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Bolling Is Wrong: Here Are Just A Few Examples Of Americans Who Were Denied The Care They Needed

Twelve-Year-Old Died In 2007 From Abscessed Tooth After His Family’s Medicaid Lapsed. In 2007, as The Washington Post reported:

Deamonte Driver, a 12-year-old homeless child, died Sunday in a District hospital after an infection from a molar spread to his brain.

At the time he fell ill, his family’s Medicaid coverage had lapsed. Even on the state plan, his mother said, the children lacked regular dental care and she had great difficulty finding a dentist. [The Washington Post, 3/3/07]

Seventeen-Year-Old’s Insurance Revoked After He Tests HIV Positive. According to Huffington Post, in 2009:

The South Carolina Supreme Court has ordered an insurance company to pay $10 million for wrongly revoking the insurance policy of a 17-year-old college student after he tested positive for HIV. The court called the 2002 decision by the insurance company “reprehensible.”

[…]

Mitchell learned that he had HIV when, while heading to college, he donated blood. Fortis then rescinded his coverage, citing what turned out to be an erroneous note from a nurse in his medical records that indicated that he might have been diagnosed prior to his obtaining his insurance policy.

Before the cancellation of the policy, an underwriter working for Fortis wrote to a committee considering whether or not to rescind his policy: “Technically, we do not have the results of the HIV tests. This is the only entry in the medical records regarding HIV status. Is it sufficient?” The underwriter’s concerns were ignored and the rescission went forward. [Huffington Post, 9/17/09]

Woman Denied Coverage For Breast Cancer Because She Wasn’t Diagnosed At Correct Clinic. From The Wall Street Journal:

In June 2003, Shirley Loewe went to Good Shepherd Medical Center here with a softball-size lump in her breast and was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer. She didn’t know it, but she had just made a big mistake.

Ms. Loewe was uninsured. Under federal law, she could have gotten Medicaid coverage — and saved herself a lot of hardship — if she’d gone to a different clinic less than a half-mile away. But by walking through Good Shepherd’s doors, Ms. Loewe unwittingly let that opportunity slip and embarked on a four-year journey through the Byzantine U.S. health-care system.

It was an odyssey that would take her to five hospitals, two clinics, two charitable organizations and two nursing homes in two states. She was denied assistance or care at least six times along the way, for reasons that ranged from not being poor enough to not being sick enough.

Ms. Loewe eventually got treatment, but at personal cost and great aggravation. [The Wall Street Journal, 9/13/07]

More: Because Fox Asked, Here Are Examples of People Who Were Denied Health Care