BOY WITH CANCER LOSES COVERAGE
AFTER OBAMACARE LAUNCH
Bureaucrats won't
help unless he is 'pregnant or an illegal alien'
Hunter Alford is the
happy kid next door with a big grin who idolizes country music star Blake
Shelton.
His parents call him
a “wild, fun loving, zombie-killing boy who loves the military and police.”
He is normal in every way, except this 7-year-old already
plays guitar and keyboards and has his heart set on learning to fiddle.
Something else sets
Hunter apart.
He was born with a
rare form of cancer and lost his health insurance just after Obamacare went
into effect.
Americans were told
the health-care law was designed to help children just like Hunter, born with a
deadly pre-existing condition and little means to pay for expensive treatments.
The Affordable Care
Act was not supposed to take away the insurance these most-vulnerable children
already had and leave them utterly defenseless against a life-threatening
disease.
Answers are hard to
come by, but it looks like that’s what the president’s signature achievement
has done in the small town of Gainesville, Texas.
‘Why would you cancel a kid?’
Ron and Krista Alford’s two children, Hunter and his sister,
Makayla, were both born with an extremely rare form of cancer called Plexiform
Hishocyne Neoplasm.
The parents said
their children “have known nothing other than hospitals, doctors, sickness and
pain.”
Makayla is currently in remission, but Hunter is in the
second fight of his young life against cancer.
He is hospitalized
and needs another round of chemotherapy, which will cost $50,000 without
insurance, leaving his parents at their wit’s end.
Krista’s strong
Midwestern spirit was immediately evident as she described her family’s dilemma
to WND, but so was the fear in her trembling voice, as she carefully searched
for the right words.
“Why would you cancel a kid?” she asked. “I really want to
send Obama and all of them pictures of my son. He has scars all over his head.
He doesn’t want to leave the house because he’s afraid people are going to make
fun of him because he’s bald.”
Changes required under Obamacare
The insurance company
initially told Krista that Hunter’s information was lost while it was making
changes required under the newly implemented health-care law.
Hunter was insured
under the Children’s Health Insurance Program in Texas, or CHIP.
According to the CHIP
website, “Families with children who get Children’s Medicaid pay nothing and
children with CHIP pay no more than $50 a year for health care coverage.”
Krista explained that CHIP is different from Medicaid.
“With CHIP you have to pay a copay for every doctor’s visit,
and you’ve got to pay so much for prescriptions,” she said.
Did she have any
suspicions as to why her child was dropped?
She said “No” and
suspected the company might be confused.
“They sent me a letter asking me why Hunter was being
hospitalized, and if he had been in an accident,” she explained. “I sent back a
letter saying that he has cancer, a very rare type of cancer, and that he is
seeking chemotherapy.”
She hopes it is just one big bureaucratic blunder.
“I can’t see the government canceling him because they are
paying too much for all his stuff,” Krista said. “It’s possible. But I can’t
see that happening because I figure the government makes a lot of money.”
‘Glitch’ cancels
cancer coverage
Once Goodman located
Hunter’s case file she got back to Harris and, without being able to divulge
details, appeared to indicate the Alfords do not meet the financial standards
for CHIP.
For a family of four,
the cutoff is $47,100. She said the state re-evaluates family income every six
months when families reapply for coverage.
Goodman claimed again
that the problem was not related to the implementation of Obamacare, but her
description of what happened indicated something in the process had changed
since the law went into effect. It would appear that something was what likely
caused Hunter to lose his insurance.
Goodman said her
department (HHSC) wasn’t required to, but chose to, transfer cases in
preparation for the advent of Obamcare. There were some “glitches” in coverage
when that happened, she said.
One of the “glitches”
apparently caused a little boy with cancer to lose his health insurance.
‘We’ll call you’
From Hunter’s hospital room, Krista told WND, “Each time I
called there was a different story. My son was transported to the hospital on
Oct. 31, and I found out his insurance was canceled on Nov. 1. That was quite a
wake up call, after not being able to sleep until five in the morning.”
When she called CHIP the following Monday, “they said he was
canceled due to his ‘not requalifying.’”
However, Krista said she’d had the insurance for a
year-and-a-half and had never received any notice that she needed to
“requalify” her children.
The experience just
got more bizarre from there.
“She told me to hang on, then, all of a sudden could not
find my son or daughter’s case, at all. And then, she transferred me over to
another gentleman who found their cases. He said it was hidden, because when
they switched over to HHSC (Texas Health and Human Services Commission), they
lost a lot of case files and Hunter’s was just one of those.”
That gave Krista reason to hope.
“He said, ‘Everything looks likes fine, just let me start
working on this, give me a couple of days, have patience and we’ll call you.’”
Is your son pregnant or an illegal?
Krista said she
waited and waited and no one contacted her.
“I called again, and then I was told he could expedite it,”
she explained. “But then, I called back the next day, and the next, and,
finally, the lady told me the only way to expedite it is if my son was pregnant
and in labor or an illegal.”
“I kind of wish, now,
he was pregnant,” she added wistfully.
“Then they told me Oct. 17th was when he was actually
canceled. But on Oct. 25 he had chemo, and they paid for it. So, I am getting
different stories.”
Police officer makes too much money?
The latest story?
It’s one that strikes the wife of a small town police officer as hard to
believe.
“Now, the new story with CHIP is they called and said my
husband makes too much money, $173 too much. So, I’m very upset. I was bawling
on the phone with her and the only thing she said was, ‘Have a nice day,’ and
she hung up.”
None of it made any sense.
“That was so upsetting, I couldn’t believe it. I was trying
to talk to her to figure out what was going on. My husband had overtime. He’s a
police officer. They’re shorthanded. And so, he has to fill in when he can so
he can protect our little bitty town of Gainesville.”
Exasperation creeping into her soft but firm voice, Krista
described how Hunter’s disease is not only uncommon, so is the way it is
behaving.
“These tumors are very rare. They are not supposed to
spread, but his decided they were going to spread. And it can go into his
lungs, because the tumors like soft tissue, and your lungs are soft tissue.”
If Hunter is in the hospital now without any insurance, WND
asked, how would the Alfords pay for his treatment?
“We will be receiving a bill for it.”
The Alfords appear to be the kind of humble and
self-sufficient Americans who would be too proud to ask for help. But their
son’s life is at stake.
How people can help
WND asked, how can
people help?
“People are donating money. There’s a website ‘Heroes for
Hunter.’ People have been so gracious by donating and I know it’s so hard, it’s
around Christmas time. Since the story aired on (local television station) KXII
donations went from only $1,000 to $10,000.”
As of Wednesday, the website had raised $11,000 toward the
$50,000 goal.
Speaking barely above
a whisper, Krista had to stop a few times to compose herself, but she managed
to say: “It brings tears to my eyes. It warms me that people are donating their
hard-earned money to help my family.”
Then she made a special request. Krista asked WND readers
for something more important than money.
“If you don’t mind, would you say a prayer for my son?
Prayers have been helping,” she said. “I want to be able to go home for
Thanksgiving and find him not running any more fevers. They really do help. ”
After a long pause, the exhausted mother collected her
breath and continued: “He’s not having a good day today. He’s very grumpy.”
Concerned individuals may contribute to the Heroes for
Hunter fund. http://www.youcaring.com/medical-fundraiser/heroes-for-hunter/93809
Concerned individuals
may contact Texas Health and Human Services ombudsman using the online
submission form or by calling
(877)787-8999 .
Read more at
http://www.wnd.com/2013/11/boy-with-cancer-loses-coverage-after-obamacare-launch/#syyeJRuiVPzqrkTk.99
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