Insurance cancellations, arbitrary rewrites of the "settled law of the land," sticker shock, doctor shock... the last and most terrible of the Four Horsemen of the ObamaCare Apocalypse visits none other than retiring Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who is battling prostate cancer after surviving colon cancer and melanoma. He told a television audience on Tuesday that his ObamaCare policy doesn't cover his oncologist, as related by Politico:
???I???m doing well from a health standpoint, got great docs,??? Coburn said on MSNBC???s ???Morning Joe??? on Tuesday when asked about his health. ???Fortunately ??? even though my new coverage won???t cover my specialist ??? I???m going to have great care, and I have a great prognosis.???
The Oklahoma Republican???s spokesman confirmed to POLITICO that since the senator enrolled in his health insurance plan under Obamacare, his coverage has been reduced and he lost coverage for his cancer specialist. Coburn will continue to pay out of pocket and see his oncologist, his office said.
Great news: you can survive ObamaCare if you've got enough money to pay your oncologist out of pocket. Senator Coburn, who is also a medical doctor, is keenly aware that lots of people can't afford that:
???We hope the White House will work with us to make sure Americans who can???t afford to pay out of pocket don???t lose access to life-saving care,??? spokesman John Hart said. ???As Dr. Coburn???s experience shows, the American people are about to learn they???re going to lose access to not only their doctors and plans, but their specialists and treatments.???
Video of Senator Coburn's appearance on MSNBC, courtesy of the Washington Free Beacon:
Somehow I have a feeling President Obama won't be giving Senator Coburn a shout-out as an ObamaCare success story during the State of the Union address on Tuesday night.
Coburn is far from the only cancer patient to lose access to existing doctors because of ObamaCare. A couple of weeks ago, a breast-cancer patient told a similar story on Fox News:
In an exclusive appearance on ???Fox & Friends,??? Josie Gracchi, who has been diagnosed with ductal-invasive carcinoma, looked into the camera and addressed Obama: ???I would like my health care taken care of. I was insured. I think anyone who is going through a serious illness should have immediate responses. I shouldn???t have to wait months, weeks, to even be considered for surgery that I should have had weeks ago.???
Gracchi was forced to postpone her Jan. 3 biopsy and follow-up treatment at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the largest private cancer center in the world, when her insurance rolled over into a new plan that was part of an exchange under the Affordable Care Act.
???As of January 1, my insurance plan rolled over into a new ObamaCare plan that is part of the exchange and my doctors are no longer available in my network, so the surgeons that I was dealing with ??? I no longer have access to,??? Gracchi told Fox News.
Another doc-shock victim to make headlines is Gloria Canter, a Florida woman battling five brain tumors plus bone cancer, whose insurance got wiped out by ObamaCare. "This came at us like a ton of bricks," her husband said.
The Democrats have responded to such people by alternately claiming they don't exist, dismissing them as mere "anecdotes," or treating their suffering as a small price to pay for the Great Health Care Leap Forward. They had insurance that worked for them before ObamaCare came along and destroyed it, violating an explicit promise Barack Obama made dozens of times, so there really isn't much for the President and his apologists to say. He'll doubtless salute some beneficiaries of ObamaCare at the State of the Union. One of the people he doesn't want to talk about will be sitting in the audience with the Republican caucus.
Well, I assume he'll attend, although Senator Coburn has a healthy lack of respect for the political ritual of the SOTU address, saying in the same "Morning Joe" interview that "the vast majority of America isn't going to pay attention to this speech, and the vast majority of America isn't going to pay attention to any of the responses to it."
Update: The Washington Free Beacon offers more tales of doc shock from Tennessee:
Shawnna Simpson???s fifteen year old daughter was hurt last week in a cheerleading accident. Simpson called her family doctor and learned that they do not accept her current health insurance plan, BlueCross Network E.
???We have health insurance at this point that is worthless,??? Simpson said of the plan that she pays $600 a month for.
She has not heard from anyone since.
Worthless, fabulously expensive, and a bureaucratic nightmare? Yeah, that's got "Barack Obama" written all over it.
Sadly, Simpson is not alone. Many other individuals are also finding out that their health insurance plans are not being accepted anymore by their doctors.
One such example is David Pearce. Pearce was looking forward to using his new plan, but upon his visit to his doctor, he was told that the practice no longer accepts his health plan.
???I handed her [the receptionist] my card, and the girl kind of looked at it and got that deer-in-headlights look and says ???Um, I???ll be right back.??????
Warning: Deer In Headlights Look is not covered by Affordable Care Act insurance.
