Posted on 04/24/2015 11:49:17 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Hospital staff broke the news to a Tacoma, Wash. woman that her operation to remove a tumor from her breast would not be happening.
Medical benefits tied to her retired husband’s U.S. Army service had expired just 12 hours before, a detail on the 41-year-old woman’s benefits card that no one noticed until she was already prepped for surgery at Madigan Army Medical Center, according to a KING-TV report.
Patricia Zuniga described the bearers of bad news as “upfront” about the awkward discovery.
“You’re not having your surgery today. You do not have health care. You do not have benefits,” Zuniga was told during her Jan. 27 appointment at the hospital.
She had been led to believe her health care expired on Jan. 30, six months after her husband’s injuries discharged him from service.
She organized the appointment in December after learning a mammogram and needle biopsy found a tumor. Doctors at the time said it was not malignant.
Zuniga still doesn’t know how bad her medical condition, but she fears cancer is overtaking her body especially after she found another lump over her thyroid gland, she told KING-TV.
Unable to have the either tumor removed on her own dime, she’s waiting for new benefits with the Affordable Care Act to kick in.
“I feel scared. I’ve got two daughters. I’m a young woman and I want to live. That’s all I think, every day when I take a shower, when I see it,” Zuniga added.
Surpise!........ Surprise... aka- we are from the givernment we’re here to help..
Thank goodness for Obamacare! that will save her
Buying insurance after the fact. NICE!
Next time I get into a car accident I get car insurance the next day and get them to pay for it.
Or, if my house burns down I will run out and buy homeowners insurance.
Military medicine is socialized medicine. Pretty good at taking care of young troops or wounded warriors, not so good with dependents or retirees.
Would that happen to an illegal? Never!!
No ‘Death Panels’, eh? Looks like Sarah Palin nailed it again.
But I thought the government promised healthcare for everyone! Was I wrong or something?!!!
Very shameful and strange stuff - the hospital and the doctors know that this is a life-threatening and time- sensitive condition, yet no one thought their oaths as medical professionals called for doing the surgery anyway?
They could always have sent her the bill afterward, so she could fund raise/get a loan, etc.?
Doctors are just mercenaries after all.
It’s pretty evil to stop cancer surgery like that. Doctors have been corrupted by the healthcare system.
A contract is a contract.
Unless something else nefarious is going on here, this is a non-story.
Uh, folks, this is bullshit.
If her husband is retired and they are still married in good faith, etc, her medical is still good, especially in an Army Hospital, assuming of course that the payments for the lifetime free medical has been kept up.
She had been led to believe her health care expired on Jan. 30, six months after her husband’s injuries discharged him from service.
Well, that's a new one on me.
If he was medically discharged, in lieu of retirement, she may not be eligible, but if he was retired and the premiums for Tricare Prime have been maintained, she is fully eligible, even if he has died as long as she has not remarried and the premiums have been maintained.
There is something else going on here...we have not been told the whole story.
Don't Rely on the VA for anything apparently.
While they may have been good back in the day.
They are quickly becoming another social experiment to shed the country of "Undesirables" and replace them with a more malleable populace.
First we Aborted our kids, now we need to off our Vets and their families.
Sounds to me like a great many important details have been left out of this story.
Where is her husband in all this? He can’t check on when his benefits expire before his wife has a biopsy?
Did the husband not hear of COBRA?
Tricare Standard works well for me.
You can still get COBRA for weeks after insurance ends.
Example: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2685965/posts?page=11#11
Filed an IG complaint and the case was turned over to . . .the very director of the VA hospital that tried to kill me. . .and she found nothing wrong with her hospital. Imagine that. . .
VA, nor Military will not do one thing to you if there is a question about eligibility. Been there done that. Mrs.easternsky
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