I can make this personal.

[TNNurse]

I finished surgery, chemo and radiation for breast cancer in 2012. I was still working and had good insurance.

I said afterwards that I would not go through that again if cancer showed back up.

This bill just passed by Republicans guarantees that since I am now on Medicare, there is no option for me to choose treatment again.

[mindfulNJ]

1. I am sorry.

Here's best wishes to your good health in the future.

[janterry]

2. It's just terrible :(

I'm so sorry for you - and all of us.

[Docreed2003]

3. Its truly awful TNNurse...

I’m sick over this for my patients, for friends and family, and for people in a situation like yours. We already have people in TN who can’t get insurance, thanks to the states hesitance to accept the expansion, and we have to fight tooth and nail to get surgeries approved for them...life saving surgeries, not just elective. It’s only going to get worse. There’s going to come a time where I look a patient in the eye and say “I’m sorry, I can’t provide this surgery because you can’t afford it”. We’re damn near there already.

[Willie Pep]

4. I am sorry to hear about that.

I think stories such as yours need to be told. Sometimes liberals have the bad habit of being too wonky. People respond better to stories that they can relate to. We have to put a human face and human story forward for every bad result this bill will produce so people realize that it will ruin lives.

Thanks again for sharing.

[democratisphere]

5. America has become an uncivil barbaric society.

There is little to be proud of and much to be embarrassed about.

[Ms. Toad]

6. The bill is horrendous - but it does NOT remove cancer care from Medicare

If PAYGO kicks in and Medicare is subject to automatic cuts AND Congress chooses not to waive PAYGO as to Medicare and Congress doesn't find a way to pay for the additional funds needed, Medicare will run out of money and cancer will be among the things that cannot be paid for.

It is understandable that, given the haste with which this was passed that the scariest stories with a grain of truth took on a life of their own. But that's all this one had was a grain of truth.

[Glimmer of Hope]

8. Yes! I am a cancer fighter on Medicare and freaked out when I saw this but found it is not factual.

[TNNurse]

9. Hopefully your treatment will be successful

and not lengthy, before the money runs out.

[Ms. Toad]

12. Best of luck

I'm discharched to survivor care in all but 1 of the three oncology divisions that had to get a piece of the action (still active follow-up in Radiology at least through March). {

We don't need terror about ability to get care, packed on to all of the emotional baggage that is inherent in getting through the cancer.

On a side note - I hate the term "survivor" - it implies a finality that is not reality once you have cancer - you have never "survived it" in the sense that it is over and in your past. I use the term NED (no evidence of disease). So I've been NED for about a month. Not on Medicare yet - but soon enough.

[TNNurse]

10. I have no faith that any Republican in congress will do anything to benefit me and ordinary citizens

[Ms. Toad]

11. I totally agree with you on that.

My concern is the repetition of false information about what is in this particular bill. No matter how horrendous it is - and they are - it is important to be factual when we trash the bill on the many thefts from ordinary citizens it does contain.

If we pound on the (false) information that it stops Medicare payment for cancer treatments - which is easily disproven, then when we correctly identify real problems, because we have made ourselves "fake news" no one will take us seriously, and we have to regain trust on matters of fact before we even open the discussion that we want to flow from those facts.

A lobbying organization. for which I'm on the national governing board, is frequently contacted for information by people who are not our natural allies becuase we have a reputation for scrupulous integrity. That frequent contact and absolute integrity permits us to use that relationship of trust to discuss (and make at least minor inroads) as to issues that are policy, rather than factual.

BTW: I'm a fellow person with breast cancer - currently NED for about a month, so I get the fear. But fear shouldn't be based on factual errors.

[HAB911]

7. There are no words