Obama’s mother had health insurance, according to biography

[alp227]

President Obama wrote a full-length memoir to explore his relationship with the father who was absent for much of his life. What little he has revealed about his relationship with his mother has come in brief, rare interviews and anecdotes in campaign ads and speeches.

In these accounts, Stanley Ann Dunham, who died at 52, was “the white woman from Kansas,” a “single mother on food stamps” and, most wrenchingly, a motivation for Obama’s drive to overhaul health care.

From his presidential quest in 2007 through the law’s passage in 2010, Obama often shared how his mother spent her last months: trying to get her health insurer to pay for her treatment for uterine and ovarian cancer, which the insurer, said the president, refused to cover because it ruled that her cancer was a preexisting condition.

But Obama’s mother had full coverage for the disease — her battle was to get disability insurance payments for her out-of-pocket expenses — according to “A Singular Woman,” a biography of Dunham by Janny Scott, who covered the campaign as a reporter for the New York Times.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-mother-had-health-insurance-according-to-biography/2011/07/14/gIQAUFm7EI_story.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. BFD

What a stupid non-story.

[somone]

2. Interesting

[MADem]

3. If you can't pay the co-pay and the "unreimbursed expenses" you're still in a pickle

After a while, they don't care if you have insurance, they want what's owed to them. Sixteen years ago, a thousand bucks was pretty serious money; several thousand, even more--even today, who could afford to rack up those kinds of expenditures without taking a crucial hit to the savings account, assuming one has one?

The White House did not dispute the book’s account, and a spokesman said Scott’s reporting makes clear the president’s mother incurred several thousand dollars of unreimbursed health-care costs each month. “She first could not get a response from the insurance company, then was refused coverage,” spokesman Nicholas Papas said. “This personal history of the president’s speaks powerfully to the impact of preexisting condition limits on insurance protection from health-care costs.”

[BlueCheese]

7. According to the NYT article...

... Dunham didn't have any problems getting her health insurance company to pay what they should have. Her argument had to do with disability insurance, which is unrelated to the health insurance bill passed last year. So in that sense her case wasn't an example of the trouble with pre-existing conditions.

Not that this changes the argument for health care reform--we didn't need any personal anecdote to be convinced in the first place. Nor would this be the first time that a politician exaggerated a personal anecdote for political advantage, nor will it be the last.

[MADem]

9. If they pay what they "should have," and you're still owing thousands,

then it's still not enough.

Some insurance is better than others. If you don't have the money to pay the difference, though, it can be very difficult.

[BlueCheese]

11. Sure. I agree completely.

I guess what the articles are saying is that Dunham didn't have any problems with her health insurance company due to pre-existing conditions, in apparent contradiction to what Obama said. Also, the problems she did have--deductible/coinsurance/copayments and an argument about pre-existing conditions with regard to disability insurance with Cigna--weren't addressed by last year's health bill.

It's rather heartbreaking to read about the letters Dunham wrote to Cigna. It's always the little details that really bring a person to life, and it's sad to know that this particular person died too early.

[MADem]

12. The article includes that quote I provided about the thousands of dollars in

unreimbursed expenses. I don't think the WH would say that the insurance shortfall information was in the book, if it wasn't.

The bottom line is, she had insurance, and that insurance didn't pay for a LOT of her care--thousands of dollars a month, according to the article (and the book, apparently).

Health care reform isn't going to happen overnight in this country. We've got Bonehead running one side of the legislative branch. We need a supermajority and some quid pro quo arm-twisting to even hope to move forward. Those lobbyists for the healthcare "industry" have done a pretty good job of making it difficult for us by bribing the people in the legislature who are supposed to be looking out for us.

It will take time.

[elehhhhna]

17. OKay so HC Ins. companies didn't suck as bad int he 60's as they do now.

ANdCigna's always been nasty.

This is news?

[BlueCheese]

18. This was in the 1990s

Not that they weren't terrible then.

[emilyg]

4. k

[RandySF]

5. This sounds like splitting hairs

And nothing Obama said is contradicted by this.

[Lucinda]

6. Thanks for the link! n/t

[SoCalDem]

8. What people often overlook is that when someone is desperately ill

they usually lack the ENERGY and focus to do all the blasted paperwork, and if coverage comes with copays & deductible minimums, it's also difficult to cover those when you cannot hold down a paying job...

People who are as ill as she was, can spend most of their days sleeping, puking, or just plain in pain.. Those things are all less than conducive to spending hours on the phone with insurers and hours working on paperwork.

[K8-EEE]

10. Most people who are bankrupted by illness have ins.

BUT THE EXPENSES STILL KILL YOU!

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[HipChick]

14. Point in case..my friend died from Breast Cancer...the insurance company would not pay for her

breast MRI - she did not have the funds to cover out of pocket - she went back and forth with them - but the time she was able to get this done, it had already spread, she died..age 42..leaving behind 4 kids,now without a mother. Yes, she had health insurance ...a fat lot of good it did her

[CBGLuthier]

15. Doesn't change a thing. America needs better healthcare

and no fucking insurance companies should be involved in health.