Research, reform and relay!

Health care policy and cancer research will probably be on top of my social priorities for the rest of my life as a way to honor Garrett’s fight by helping those who must follow after him suffer less. The following link is about a specific research project and clinical trial by Tgen that I have been following the progress of for more than a few years. It is one of the best chances other people with advanced basal cell carcinomas have to finding successful treatments. Although it will always be frustrating when research could have helped Garrett, this is outweighed by my appreciation for researchers getting closer to treatments that will work for others, so they must not go without targeted treatment options.


"New drug effective against the most common form of skin cancer"

This kind of progress is also a great reminder why support for medical research should remain a high priority in our agendas and budgets. We can all keep research of importance funded by writing or calling our politicians or making financial donations as we are able to organizations like Tgen, Stand Up To Cancer or American Cancer Society - Cancer Action Network which all support collaborative research in important ways.


Also, my favorite economist and health care policy advisor has a new blog article highlighting how our current employment-based health insurance system works by publicly subsidizing community rated insurance and how the health care reform recently passed is not radically different, but expands the system to be more available and affordable to all Americans instead of just those employed by companies who choose to or are large and thus required to provide health insurance to their employees.  Getting the rest of us closer to the insurance model which members of congress enjoy.

"The economics of privately sponsored social insurance"

Soon Garrett’s friends and I will be starting the 5th year of fundraising for the American Cancer Society through Relay for Life… look out for that post and then make your tax deductible donation, donate blood/stem cells/bone marrow at your local blood bank or get your own cancer screenings done for the year in honor of Garrett and all those who must fight cancer after him!

Health Care Reform Summaries & Blogs

If you didn't already know, I believe health care reform is a good thing for all Americans' quality of life, including Garrett's and my own. But like most reform it is seriously complicated and has plenty of intrinsic flaws. If you have questions or fears about the changes the new law will bring when it goes into effect in 2014 (some of it sooner), there are now some legible summaries and fact sheets on the topic that can help us all to understand its strengths and weaknesses without political hype clouding fact.

Health care, like education, is something we all deserve to have access to. We will all pay for it of course, but I hope reform will be the first step toward more affordable care. If you want to know more check out these links and keep looking out for credible reports:

-Summary of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (thankfully, only 13 pages long and in list form)

-Key changes to Medicare

-Impact on young adults

-An economists view on health reform, how other countries cover everyone & why mandating insurance makes the system more fair for people with diseases like aggressive cancers. Three great articles 1, 2 & 3

-Blog by a nonprofit health education organization

Change is difficult

We have been on a pretty good roller coaster ride the last few weeks, but we learned so much about how our nation’s employer-based health insurance system works. (It’s top on my list, but I don’t blame you if you are just plain tired of hearing about health care reform, skip this paragraph if you need a break from it all.) We are both so lucky and grateful to have jobs with remarkably supportive employers, especially in this economy, but we see more clearly now how they are impacted by the rising cost of health care and can be penalized for employing those with chronic illnesses. Not only must employers absorb or pass on the rising cost of premiums, when coverage gets too expensive they must cut back benefits, increase employee deductibles or drop it all together. Rising premiums are exacerbated for small companies with group health insurance by the most unjust factor – experience rating. Based on the claims or cost of health services used by employees every year, premiums can rise dramatically for the whole group. It’s clear why we are so lucky, while the other half of employers with 3-9 employees offer no health insurance at all. And worst of all, when you lose your job (or have another change in life circumstance) in this system you also are burdened by losing your health insurance. Bah! Whose idea was this anyway?!

After some ups and downs shopping for potential group plans, we were presented an individual health insurance plan that works for us and keeps Garrett’s claims from affecting his employer’s experience record. While Garrett remains committed to working as much as he physically can, this also means he has a policy he can take with him if he ever has to leave his office. I am so glad that there was any health plan available to him and affordable for us. I wish every person had opportunities for continued coverage when they get disastrously sick, lose their job, want to start their own business, get a divorce or otherwise have life changes that should not preclude them from having health insurance.

Garrett and I carpooled to work this week which was a great accomplishment given his continued vision trouble and ongoing fatigue. No treatments this week, but we are looking forward to an appointment with the eye doctor tomorrow. It has been months since I’ve seen Garrett as giddy as he was today when the Huskies beat Marquette, he seriously did a celebration run through the whole house. Hope UW keeps it up on Saturday against New Mexico...

Health Care Frustrations

I know MaryEllen has blogged about this a couple of times but this post is by Garrett, the sick and emotional Garrett, maybe not the most rational Garrett. I usually would never get involved and waste peoples time by posting this but I have reached my boiling point. Recently my boss has basically had to go in search of new insurance for my company because of the jack in prices that our current insurance company who shall go nameless has given to my boss. Oh yeah, and the biggest issue with the rise in premiums is likely because of one employee, ME.

I have worked there about 6 years now, 3 of which I had never filed a single claim and hadn't seen a doctor for any reason for probably 10-15 years. Boy have I been a huge burden on the insurance company. Well we all know that 3 years ago I had a reversal in fortune and became unexpectedly sick. Great right, thats what insurance is for so when and if you get sick, you have someone to back you and make sure you don't go broke and homeless because you can't afford the astronomical cost of health coverage. I guess I misunderstand the meaning of insurance.

Well lately we have come to learn that my new claims history since becoming stricken with cancer is causing my boss to have to seek new insurance for the entire company because the current insurance company basically does not want to cover me specifically. So basically right now I feel like a giant burden on my boss and my company as a whole. It's horrible that I have to deal with this junk and feel like this on top of everything else I am going through.

There are tons of more details to this story that would take me 20 minutes and much boredom to type out but needless to say this has all opened my eyes to how big of criminals these insurance companies are. Like one of my good friends told me today, they know what they are doing to people like me and know what they are guilty of and are just trying to dehumanize everything. I am a case number, not a cancer patient.

I still don't believe Obama's ideas are what this country needs and I honestly don't know what the solution is but reform is what America needs. I know I sound like a liberal right now but there is no way we as Americans can allow these insurance companies to keep getting away with, excuse my language this bullshit. I have finally snapped and encourage everybody, whether Republican or Democrat to get involved and knowledgeable. I don't care if the solution is public coverage or privatized, it just CANNOT stay how it is right now.

Sorry for the rant, I have just been pretty emotional about this subject lately because how it is affecting me and a man who has been like a second father and an amazing mentor to me, my boss. It is not fair that he has to get jerked around and ripped off because of my health issues. So please just take a few minutes a day or so and keep up on the current events going on and get involved if you can.

There is only one important time and that time is now

Despite your opinion on how this should be done, I want to ask you all to support some kind of change in our health care system sooner rather than later. If you are fortunate enough to work hard, earn your health insurance, access preventative medicine and annual cancer screenings and afford to pay your health care bills, very good for you, you are living the dream! We have been amazingly well supported through Garrett's employer based private insurance, but so many cancer patients and other sick Americans are not that lucky. We are forever grateful for the insurance coverage we have had so far, but built into the system are so many catches, inequities, inefficiencies and flat out disasters that it is not working to support our country's general health or especially those with catastrophic health conditions like cancer.

I will not claim that the proposal out there now is the magical answer to all our health care problems, but trying to do something better is long overdue and it is my wish that we try something new at this point. If it does not work and/or needs adjustments I will be speaking up about it again in the future, as we all should. But I believe the worst thing we can do now is wait longer, fight about it more and let cancer patients continue to reach their lifetime benefit limits, delay diagnosis or treatment, get denied and dropped, or go bankrupt paying for their own care. No matter how you feel about our government's current social assistance programs or the inclusion or exclusion of a government run health insurance option, this is a matter worth moving forward on. And then continuing forward, making changes to it as many times as necessary to improve the health and life of us all, especially those who don't have any choice in the matter of living with cancer.

A simple way to show your support is to sign the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network's petition to congress. It simply says that you support taking action now, making forward progress without delay.