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Michelle Obama turns Breast Cancer Awareness Month into attack on insurance companies
Washington Examiner ^ | 10-23-2009 | Byron York

Posted on 10/23/2009 12:54:50 PM PDT by lifeisacarnival

The First Lady cited a new study from the Department of Health and Human Services -- which just happened to come out today -- citing breast cancer patients with insurance who had to pay an average of $6,200 in out-of-pocket costs each year. "This is with insurance," Mrs. Obama said. "These are the people who are blessed." The situation is, of course, far worse for those without insurance, Mrs. Obama said.

But the insurance companies make life miserable even for those with coverage. "And then there are those annual lifetime caps that insurance companies set," Mrs. Obama said, with "one recent survey show[ing] that ten percent of all cancer patients report hitting a cap on their benefits…"

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: breast; cancer; democratparty; democrats; flotusmichelle; michelle; obama; thug
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To: NMEwithin

My Grandmother when I was just a opinionated kid, had aggressive BC. Back when Breast surgery was mutilation. She was given 5 years. But our great small town Doc treated her and she live another 20 years. I never give up. Especially with todays cutting edge medicine.


41 posted on 10/23/2009 1:14:19 PM PDT by Marty62 (former Marty60)
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To: Sarah Barracuda

Protocol in GB, if I remember correctly, is a mammogram every 3 years, after 50. Your odds are bad if you have cancer and have to wait that long for diagnosis.


42 posted on 10/23/2009 1:15:46 PM PDT by keepitreal ( Don't tread on me.)
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To: lifeisacarnival

I’mma let chew get back to yo breass cancer munt but Barack say pass healthcare or I’mma gonna knock you out.


43 posted on 10/23/2009 1:17:45 PM PDT by ichabod1 ( I am rolling over in my grave and I am not even dead yet.)
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To: Sarah Barracuda

No,she would not. She would be paer of the ruling elite ant thus exempt from the rules the serfs have to follow.

She would not have to wait but you would.


44 posted on 10/23/2009 1:18:17 PM PDT by sport
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To: ClearCase_guy
These people hate private corporations.

They hate private anything. They want you to become a number, and they want to know where that number is, what it's doing, and what health it is in, at all times. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
45 posted on 10/23/2009 1:18:18 PM PDT by bamahead (Avoid self-righteousness like the devil- nothing is so self-blinding. -- B.H. Liddell Hart)
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To: ClearCase_guy

For the Race everything, for those outside the race, nothing.


46 posted on 10/23/2009 1:18:28 PM PDT by ichabod1 ( I am rolling over in my grave and I am not even dead yet.)
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To: Always Right

Mussolini never made the trains run on time.


47 posted on 10/23/2009 1:19:02 PM PDT by ichabod1 ( I am rolling over in my grave and I am not even dead yet.)
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To: lifeisacarnival

People without insurance are in trouble if they get breast cancer, says Michelle.

I think she forgot to add that if they cause a car accident without automobile insurance, they will also be in trouble.

Oh, and she should have added that people without food really get hungry. People without coats get cold. People without cell phones can’t ever be reached when they are not home. And worst of all, if you don’t go to the bathroom, you will have wet pants.


48 posted on 10/23/2009 1:24:27 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: lifeisacarnival

Our Patient-Dumping First Lady is lying through her pearly WHITE teeth.


49 posted on 10/23/2009 1:24:41 PM PDT by Reagan69 (The only thing SHOVEL-READY since BO's stimulus has been MICHAEL JACKSON (tammy bruce))
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To: lifeisacarnival

For these people (Democrats) no moment is without its political calculation.


50 posted on 10/23/2009 1:25:08 PM PDT by YHAOS
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To: keepitreal
$6200 a year is a pretty reasonable sum to pay for your life.

Considering a lot of the new cars on the road cost 30K, that sounds like a bargain to me. I'd rather have my life than new wheels.

Michelle has no business acting like $6200 is a lot of cabbage when her husband hands out $4500 for clunkers and 8K for new home buyers. That number is just stupid anyway.

I do hope she gets a pink mop for Christmas, though.

51 posted on 10/23/2009 1:25:21 PM PDT by countess
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To: lifeisacarnival
The stupidity of their arguments know no bounds.

The COST will NOT go down; it's just a matter of whose wallet the money comes from.

They are promoting SOMEBODY ELSE WHO CAN AFFORD TO PAY FOR YOU as the "utopia" for their dead-ass voterbase.

52 posted on 10/23/2009 1:25:35 PM PDT by traditional1 ("don't gots to worry 'bout no mo'gage. Don't gots to buy no gas...Obama, he gonna take care o' me")
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To: lifeisacarnival
". . . And then there are those annual lifetime caps that insurance companies set," Mrs. Obama said . . ."

annual lifetime caps?

Well, Michelle, which is it?

53 posted on 10/23/2009 1:25:55 PM PDT by mellow velo
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To: C19fan

Its fairly standard insurance to have about $1K deductible and 20% copay. So she’s getting about $26K worth of treatment every year for $6K. My out of pocket max is $6K, so if their insurance is the same, she could be getting way more treatment every year. It just takes $26K to hit the out of pocket max.

The new PBO-CARE better have a deductible and copay or our doctors are going to be overwhelmed and the this is going to cost way to much.. But I’m sure PBO wants free healthcare for all.


54 posted on 10/23/2009 1:27:54 PM PDT by revtown
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To: bray

It all depends on the type of insurance you have. I have a couple friends who have been treated for breast cancer recently, then had the chemo and radiation. They have had a max out of pocket per year...for one woman it was around $3500, the other was around $5000. However, that did not include the co-payments...they were neither included in the deductible or the max out of pocket, so if you throw in the co-payments for regular visits to the surgeon, oncologist, hematologist, etc., I imagine it might add up to that figure for some insurance plans.


55 posted on 10/23/2009 1:28:18 PM PDT by dawn53
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To: lifeisacarnival

This assumption of Ms Obama is so untrue. I have had multiple surgeries, hospital stays, bone scans ,physical therapy,mamagrams every year, and finally extensive reconstructive surgery and it never cost me anything over my monthly insurance payment. The only thing I ever paid for was my co pay for Dr’s office visits.


56 posted on 10/23/2009 1:29:23 PM PDT by heylady
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To: keepitreal

$6200 a year is a pretty reasonable sum to pay for your life.


I know someone with breast cancer who has paid out of pocket costs, if not $6200 a year, but maybe in that range. (Not to mention various incidental costs of time off work, travel etc.).

I tend to agree with you - she’s $6200 poorer than she o/w would be but she’s alive. And her form of cancer was particularly vicious and only responded to a rare combo of drugs that she got on a study.

What should one’s out of pocket costs be? Zero?


57 posted on 10/23/2009 1:30:29 PM PDT by 2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten
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To: NMEwithin
My wife has been treated for metastatic breast cancer for 8 years now...can’t say we have had any issues with our insurance company at all.

My wife and I got screwed by an insurance company over breast cancer. She had it twice and the last time she discovered a lump in the "other side" and the doctors said it was benign and they didn't need to even check it out. My wife, having already been through chemo and a lumpectomy, said "hell no!" The insurance agree to pay for the one side of the double mastectomy if it was found to be malignant, which it turned out it was. They never paid and we had to foot the bill.

This isn't to say I agree with anything "Shellie" says.

58 posted on 10/23/2009 1:34:08 PM PDT by subterfuge (BUILD MORE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS NOW!!!)
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To: lifeisacarnival

One wonders, why are not the inadequacies addressed, rather than simply putting the insurance companies out of business altogether?

Insurance companies are in business to make a profit, and failing that, they do go out of business. They have to walk a rather delicate balance at all times, to assure what they pay out in claims does not exceed what they have made in returns on investments, and continuously receive in premiums paid in by participating insured individuals and entities.

You see, ANY insurance company is making a bet that some calamity will NOT happen to you, while you are making the bet that it WILL happen. Life insurance, motor vehicle insurance, health insurance, fire insurance, the game is the same. Only the odds differ in each instance, which has something to do with how much is paid for insurance against a given risk.

That is the operative word, risk. No one is OBLIGATED to purchase insurance, and in fact, many people choose this option of going uninsured. Just as they climb the sides of mountains and play dodge’m with oncoming locomotives. The physical impact of risk, or the appearance of risk, does stimulate the the nervous system and the resulting rush as the body’s physiology responds. At the end, all of us, every one, will die. Despite belief to the contrary, some day, at some point, our physical bodies will fail us. The question is, what will be the means of our demise, and how would knowledge of that affect our behavior? Being poor dumb human beings with not much more awareness than a bullfrog most of the time, we just keep muddling through.

And the world STILL has a lot of bullfrogs.


59 posted on 10/23/2009 1:34:47 PM PDT by alloysteel (....the Kennedys can be regarded as dysfunctional. Even in death.)
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To: SoldierDad
So, bo and mo are marquis and marchioness?
60 posted on 10/23/2009 1:46:55 PM PDT by sticker
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