Relief Comes To Family's Medical Debt Only After Mother's Death

"We didn't have enough money to cremate her," Bob Wessenberg of Coppell, Texas, recalls, after being faced with his wife's catastrophic illness and the dysfunction of the healthcare system.

The Wessenbergs were a happy family of four when Sheila Wessenberg was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer on Mother's Day in 2001. At the time, Bob Wessenberg was working as a contractor, making over $100,000 with health insurance. After reporting that his wife was undergoing chemotherapy, his contract was not renewed and the family no longer had health insurance.

Although the family made extensive attempts to salvage their finances by selling stocks, bonds, savings accounts and cashing in Bob's retirement, Sheila had to go without chemotherapy. They exhausted all their resources after 6 months and were unable to afford COBRA. She didn't qualify for coverage from the local county hospital or Medicare. Uninsured women with breast cancer are twice as likely to die from the disease as women with coverage.

Test results from the doctor came back. The cancer had metastasized, with four lesions on her lungs, but Sheila had to stop seeking treatment. Sheila even resorted to panhandling with a coffee can, earning $150 for her efforts, which was scarcely enough to cover groceries.

Despite receiving a lumpectomy and a mastectomy and free medical care from a local doctor, Sheila's cancer ultimately took her life. She became eligible for Medicare the day after she died. Her husband finally found work with a temporary agency in September of 2005, and procured health insurance for the family through a new job.

Ironically, many of Sheila's medical bills, totaling more than $200,000, were written off only because she passed away.

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Comments

[ramsha]

If one of your family members was sick and dying and you needed money among other things, would you be dithering about the enormity of the debt you will be incurring? This is what some of the heartless congressmen are doing. So many hard working, honest Americans feel that the rug is being pulled from under them. On the other hand these same Congressmen had no qualms about incurring enormous amount of debt by waging war on imagined enemies which also sacrificed countless lives.

[DandaPanda]

She did not matter you see, she was just a mom, a wife, no one of consequence who could make stink about how she was treated...This is what insurance companies think of each and every one of us and yet there are still people out there who will defend them no matter what.

[Joe The Nerd Ferraro - Huffpost Blogger]

what is the name of the company that fired this guy after his wife got sick?

[LHB58]

Many municipalities have "Good Samaritan" laws that require people to take positive action if they are witnessing a violent crime, even if taking such action puts their lives in danger. How can it be illegal for a person to turn away from a crime of violence perpetrated by another person, when it is considered business as usual for a Health Insurance company to do something like this? And what is the name of the woman's Health Insurance Company? I'd love to tell them in person what I think of them!

[hypnotoad72]

Written off...

The whole system needs to be reformed.

Written off... none of us is allowed the luxury, so why are companies getting freebies?

Or the other way around; why can't we get the freebies if they do?

[TonyOnly]

My sympathies to the family. According to a recent Harvard study, 45,000 Americans per year die due to inadequate, or no health insurance. That means the private healthcare system is killing 1 American every 12 minutes. It's completely unacceptable that the richest country in the world denies any of it's citizens access to full healthcare when they are desparately ill. Congress needs to pass a public option. Now!

[hypnotoad72]

Death panels.

Yet people think Obama wants to put in death panels... (only if Obama is in the insurance companies' rear pocket, which I doubt as they're in a hissyfit over what's going on in Congress...)

[TonyOnly]

Exactly.

[RightsGuy]

Our fight for equal access to healthcare for all is about democracy, human rights, civil rights, and basic human decency. WE MUST JOIN TOGETHER TO FIGHT FOR OUR CIVIL RIGHTS AND BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. Health care is a basic human right.

JOIN IN THE ACTION! The next wave of the Mobilization for Health Care for All has begun. Go here to see the locations of the 19 actions around the country: http://www.healthcare-now.org/the-next-wave-of-actions/

For more info: http://mobilizeforhealthcare.org/

[RightsGuy]

The health insurance companies will do anything to maintain their profits, so they bribe Congress. We, the people, need to vote OUT OF OFFICE all those in Congress who go along with this corruption.

BLUE CROSS OF CALIFORNIA, A SUBSIDIARY OF WELLPOINT, ENCOURAGED EMPLOYEES THROUGH PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS TO CANCEL THE HEALTH INSURANCE POLICIES OF INDIVIDUALS WITH EXPENSIVE ILLNESSES.

One Blue Cross employee earned a perfect score of "5" for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that noted the employee's role in dropping thousands of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 million worth of medical care.

Blue Cross of California and two other insurers saved more than $300 million in medical claims by canceling more than 20,000 sick policyholders over a five-year period.

Read more here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072003363_Comments.html

[mamalisa38]

In 2004, George W. Bush and the Republican's gave $950 million to Iraq to institute universal health care.

[guendy]

Please tell me that's not true because I am going to have a fu.k.ing heart attack.

[LHoney]

Yes. Both Iraq and Afganistan have universal healthcare paid for by the US taxpayer...

[randeg]

There should be a law against not renewing contracts just because there is illness in the family. This is the worst thing that can happen to anybody and I hope the people responsible for this should toss and turn in their sleep for contributing to this mother's death.

Evelyn Guzman
http://www.debtchallenges.com (If you want to visit, just click but if it doesn’t work, copy and paste it onto your browser.)

[LHoney]

As Alan Grayson would say, this is repuke health care reform in action. Where is the outrage? These people were productive members of society and now those children have no mother. Why is anyone willing to stand for this?

[IhateNeoCons]

Would someone please print this story out, roll it up into a ball (maybe soak it in something foul or poisonous) and JAM IT DOWN LIEBERMAN'S F*****G THROAT! Thank God we have Joe the Hero Lieberman to tell us all that a public option is wrong for the country. WhatEVER would we do without people like him in this world? Seriously, where are the journalists? Why is it acceptable for parasites like him to dodge answering for this? He'd give some politician's answer avoiding the question with some smug air that we really don't understand how complicated it all is. Well Joe, I for one am fed up. This isn't about you having an intellectual disagreement with us on policy. This is you doing what is best for Joe, while sworn to do otherwise. As far as I'm concerned it is borderline treason. It is most certainly devoid of ALL morality.

[RightsGuy]

Contact Senator Joe Leiberman and tell him what you think.

1. WEB FORMS are here:

http://lieberman.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm?regarding=issue

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/mail/?id=688&lvl=C&chamber=S

2. CALL AND FAX him here:

Washington, D.C. Office:
706 Hart Senate Office Building,
District of Columbia 20510-0703
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

Hartford, CT Office:
1 Constitution Plaza, 7th Floor
Hartford, Connecticut 06103
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

[CanadianBeef]

Good news, kids! Your Mom's dead.
Only in America.

[RightsGuy]

Our fight for equal access to healthcare for all is about democracy, human rights, civil rights, and basic human decency. WE MUST JOIN TOGETHER TO FIGHT FOR OUR CIVIL RIGHTS AND BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. Health care is a basic human right.

In virtually every other civilized nation, no one fears losing everything due to some medical catastrophe.

[CanadianBeef]

I see no evidence that America is a civilized country.

[RightsGuy]

Two main arguments for single-payer healthcare:

THE MORAL ARGUMENT

Health insurance companies make their profit by denying health care to sick people. That is immoral and unethical.

THE ECONOMIC ARGUMENT

Our current system of for-profit corporate health insurance has created an unbearable national economic burden. Over 1500 separate insurance companies operate under different rules creating 30 % administrative overhead-- Medicare overhead is only 2%.

By converting to a single payer system, we immediately save 300 billion dollars.

We pay twice what other countries pay for healthcare, yet 50 million Americans have no healthcare coverage and 87 million were without health insurance in the past 2 years. 62% of bankruptcies are due to medical bills.

Despite what we pay, the US ranks LAST of 19 industrialized nations in preventable deaths, and 29th of 37 in infant mortality. The World Health Organization ranks the US at 72nd for healthcare accessibility and efficiency. We can no longer maintain the status quo for the ways we currently provide and pay for health care.

[CanadianBeef]

The other side has no points to make, just a paranoid fear of their own elected government and disdain for their fellow citizens.