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Health Care Action: Union Activists Visit Congress, Deliver Letters from Consumers |
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This morning, more than 100 local and state union activists and leaders kicked off a two-day National House Call on Congress action, delivering the first batches of more than 42,000 letters from union members demanding real health care reform.
An Arkansas couple is personally delivering to Capitol Hill their story of a near fatal accident and a four-year struggle with their insurance company that’s led to their bankruptcy.
The union leaders, from more than two dozen states, also are reminding lawmakers that the union members and working families who worked so hard on their campaigns last fall are the same people who strongly back health care reform. They are telling senators that reform must control costs, not tax benefits, include a strong public option, require employers to pay their fair share and hold insurance companies accountable.
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Today also is National Call-in Day for Health Care, with people around the country contacting their senators to demand real health care reform. (Click here to call your senators.)
The more than 42,000 letters from union members and Working America members describe their struggles with a broken health care system and insurance companies that put their profits far, far above the people they are supposed to serve.
David and Kelly Arellanes shared their experiences with their fellow activists this morning before heading to Capitol Hill.
David is a member of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and Kelly is a former CWA member. In 2004, David, Kelly and their children were on vacation when Kelly suffered a terrible fall from a horse and severe head injuries. She was airlifted to the nearest hospital.
The doctor said I had two choices. He could operate immediately and try to save her life or I could wait and she would be dead in an hour. I took the only choice I had.
As soon as Kelly was wheeled into the operating room, David was on the phone to United Healthcare to report the accident and the emergency treatment. But three weeks later, just as Kelly was emerging from the coma,
I got my first letter from United, they said I hadn’t reported the accident and weren’t going to pay.
After he convinced the insurance giant he had followed procedures and contacted the company, United tried to duck payment by claiming the treatment was “out of network.”
Today, more than four years later, United Healthcare has paid some of the costs. But the Arellanes have been forced into bankruptcy and had to sell most of their assets to keep their home to cover the rest of the costs of Kelly’s treatment. Says David:
[United Healthcare] fought us every step of the way…we can’t let this happen to other people, other workers, other families in this country.
1 Comment
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Most people don’t have too many medical conditions until they are older. I don’t like 500 billion dollars removed from medicare; it is difficult now to get a doctor to see those on this program.