Family of Daughter Requiring 86 Brain Tumor Surgeries Loses Insurance Under Obamacare

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 9, 2013   |   11:33AM   |   Washington, DC

Eileen Benthal isn’t sure what to do. The health insurance coverage she and her family had been relying on for years has been canceled thanks to Obamacare provisions that will force her to have to find new insurance.

Unfortunately, Benthal is one of many families whose experience with Obamacare is the opposite of what President Barack Obama and Democrat lawmakers voting for it promised would happen. Story after compelling story has surfaced of the families and people who ave lost insurance under Obamacare — with as many as 5.5 million people victimized by one of the many kinds of health care rationing pro-life groups opposing Obamacare predicted.

A local news report has more on the Benthal family and their daughter.

Her daughter, Johanna, 17, has undergone 86 surgeries since she was diagnosed at three months old with a rare genetic neurological disease that causes tumors to grow in her brain. Her parents’ insurance plan has always covered her care, soaring to at least $100,000 per year in medical expenses.

With the new rules and surrounding confusion, that coverage hangs in the balance.

“I was in my daughter’s hospital room when I was on the phone with the insurance company and they told me our plan would be terminated,” Benthal said. Johanna was recovering from her latest brain surgery, a stay Benthal expects to cost around $30,000. Benthal started crying.

She and her husband have had a plan they purchase as a sole proprietorship, she being a freelance writer and he a marketer. Under one of the act’s provisions, according to their provider, Oxford, they are no longer eligible for the plan.

Their only feasible option appears to be entry into the New York State Health Exchange, which Benthal’s insurance agent said would cut Johanna’s access to her current hospital in NYC and the other premium hospitals in the region, most of which do not participate in the plans available on the exchange. If they were to purchase another plan from Oxford for Johanna, it would be as an individual and would include a $6,000 deductible with copays. Their current plan has a $4,000 deductible without copays.

The shift also leaves the family’s Medicaid assistance in the lurch, Benthal said. They had received reimbursements for their premiums, but the future of that arrangement is uncertain.

“All these offices are in chaos and no one knows anything,” she said of Medicaid and other agencies she’s dealt with. “We had a relationship with New York State that worked. With our medically fragile child we can’t afford to be without health insurance for a single day.”

Benthal said she is confident she will “figure something out,” but says she fears the federal government will be less efficient at delivering the level of care she was used to receiving for her daughter. She feels the act lacks in practicability, having more to do with control of healthcare than its improvement.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

 

Millions of Americans have lost their health insurance as a result of the rules and regulations of Obamacare.

The stories of families losing their health insurance now that Obamacare is in place are getting more and more heartbreaking. While liberals talk about taking care of children, what about this little girl, who suffers from cancer and, though no fault of their own, her parents are losing their insurance under Obamacare’s rules and regulations.
Witness this family in New York. Cornelius Kelly had no issues securing health insurance under the state Obamacare exchange for his family and some of their children, but their 18-month-old daughter was left out in the cold. He was told she would be required to have her own health insurance policy costing the Kelly family as much as $369 a month.