Under ObamaCare, My Mom Can't Get Her Cancer Drug

We can, and must, do better: Stephen Blackwood
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 24, 2014 11:40 AM CST
Updated Feb 24, 2014 11:49 AM CST
Under ObamaCare, My Mom Can't Get Her Cancer Drug
Stock image   (Shutterstock)

Stephen Blackwood offers a wrenching indictment of ObamaCare in the Wall Street Journal: His mother, diagnosed with carcinoid cancer in 2005, "wouldn't still be here" without a shot she gets twice a month of Sandostatin, a drug that slows the disease. But in November, her health plan was one of many canceled because it was "considered illegal under the new health law." And after "dozens of hours" spent talking to other insurers, she finally bought the only plan that seemed like it might cover Sandostatin—incredibly, the Humana enrollment agent couldn't tell her for sure whether it would, and said the only way to find out was to enroll. This month she learned that the company wouldn't actually cover the drug, which had cost $14,000 since Jan. 1, or her other cancer-related drugs.

"This is a woman who had an affordable health plan that covered her condition. Our lawmakers weren't happy with that because ... they wanted plans that were affordable and covered her condition," Blackwood writes. "So they gave her a new one. It doesn't cover her condition and it's completely unaffordable." Now his mother is appealing Humana's decision, but if it stands, the reality of the situation may speed her toward her death. "There is something deeply and incontestably perverse about a law that so distorts and undermines the free activity of individuals that they can no longer buy and sell the goods and services that keep them alive." Click for Blackwood's full column. (More ObamaCare stories.)

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