Here's what I sent my senator:

[Bette Noir]

Dear Senator Feinstein,

Today I received a phone call from the imaging company that did an MRI on my back last month. The insurance company, which had pre-authorized my MRI, was refusing to pay.

My husband keeps his job primarily for the insurance. Our savings are enough that, if we weren't uninsurable in the market, we could almost retire. His company pays some, and we pay an additional several hundred dollars each month for a "Cadillac plan," which, in theory, pays 90% of everything.

Only it doesn't. When the chronic pain in my back, which has prevented me from working for the last several years, became so bad that I was housebound and unable to perform even the simplest household tasks, I sought treatment. The evaluation was free (no insurance payment required). I paid cash for the necessary blood tests, as I was told the copay for my insurance would undoubtedly be more than the cash price my doctor had negotiated with the lab. I paid cash for the treatments, several thousand dollars, because the insurance industry considers non-surgical treatment for my condition experimental, even though it is FDA approved and has a success rate three times that of surgery. The only contribution from the insurance company was supposed to be that they would pick up 90% of the cost of the MRI, which in itself would be a few thousand dollars.

Only they don't want to pay. They have collected my premiums for as long as they have been my husband's employer's insurer, without a single claim on my part, and now they don't want to pay.

They will pay, eventually, I'm sure, because there are lawyers in my husband's family, and we'll see that they pay. My point, and why I'm writing you, is that the American public deserves better than to be enslaved to this industry, to have our health care determined by an industry that has demonstrated repeatedly that it will cut every corner possible, and deny every claim it can, in order to maximize profits.

Senator Feinstein, when I was working as a nurse (I destroyed my back taking care of sick people) I was directly told, by an insurance company functionary, (name of patient) "better be dead by Monday."

The best option, in my opinion as a nurse and a consumer of health care, would be a single-payer system supported by a graduated income tax. Since that is not under discussion, the minimal acceptable option would be an open exchange, available to *all* Americans, which *must* include a non-profit, government-run option.

An individual mandate, in the absence of such an open exchange and public insurance option, would only feed the vultures who have been preying on us for years.

[Blue State Blues]

1. k & r