Media Release
| For Immediate Release | Contact | Phone |
| September 1, 2009 | Eve Weissman | 732-246-4772 |
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez Highlights Need for National Health Reform through Patients and Their Families, Dispels Myths and Misinformation
Wendell Potter, retired insurance company executive, offers insight into insurance company practices and industry attempts to kill real reform
Highland Park, NJ — Today, Tuesday, September 1, 2009, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, was joined by former insurance industry executive Wendell Potter, NJ Citizen Action, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and New Jersey families for a Press Conference at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, NJ highlighting the urgent need for health care reform.
The families who participated in today's event exemplify millions of Americans who have suffered private insurance company abuses — hours of calls, endless paperwork, uncertainty, and thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses for life-saving treatments during periods of extreme need.
"As a member of the committee most central to health insurance reform, I am working to help craft a bill that lets you keep the health insurance you have if you like it, while increasing choice and competition to keep insurers honest," said Menendez. "Today, I want to focus on the voices that have gotten too little attention this summer. The voices that, for decade after decade, have been evidence of a health insurance system that isn't good enough for our families and our nation."
"New Jersey families need real health care reform, which includes the creation of a national public health insurance plan so we are not left at the mercy of private insurance companies," said Eve Weissman, Health Care Campaign Coordinator for NJ Citizen Action. "A public option will control skyrocketing costs across the health care system, help keep private insurers honest, and ensure that quality, affordable health care will be there for all of us when we need it."
Senator Menendez has expressed strong support for the creation of a public health insurance option as part of national health care reform to provide consumers with choices currently unavailable in the private insurance market. Today, Senator Menendez said that he will work to ensure quality, affordable health care for all New Jerseyans emphasizing that the public option is central to meaningful reform.
At today's Press Conference, Senator Menendez was joined by 3 families who described their difficulties with their private health insurance during the most difficult times of their lives: a time when they were battling illness.
Kia Moore's 21 month-old child needed a kidney transplant after being born with kidney failure. After months of treatment at a Philadelphia hospital and having a scheduled date for the operation, her insurance company told her that her son could only have the operation at 3 hospitals, none of which performed steroid-free transplants, vital to the child's growth. It took endless paperwork, calls, and investigations to finally get young Xavier the operation he needed.
Eleanor Hahn was a sophomore in high school when she noticed a bump on her arm that was diagnosed as osteosarcoma, a rare form of cancer. Her illness necessitated an operation to remove the cancerous bone. Many of the costs for her surgery and ensuing care were not paid for by the insurance company. Eleanor, who for months needed chemotherapy, could not take needed anti-nausea medication, because the pills were too costly and not covered by insurance outside of the hospital setting.
Joyce Parseghian (deceased) blacked out while driving. During the series of medical examinations that later diagnosed her problem as a brain tumor - specifically, central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma, she changed insurance companies. She required immediate chemotherapy followed by radiation treatments. Without treatment, her doctors predicted she would only have a few months to live. Her insurance company denied the treatment because of a determination that it was a pre-existing condition. She was able to receive treatment through a grant from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and lived for three more years. Her sister Linda joined Senator Menendez today to tell her story.
Senator Menendez was also joined by Wendell Potter, a former senior communications executive at a major health insurance company who is speaking out about the problems inherent in the health insurance industry and the pressing need for health care reform. Potter was an active participant in high-level industry strategy sessions within his company and at the trade-group level through America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). When the health care reform debate began, Potter became vocal on how insurance companies look for ways to deny coverage, are misleading in their advertising, hike small businesses' premiums after an employee suffers an accident or an illness, and have mounted a sophisticated offensive to disarm the public and lawmakers and kill real reform. According to Potter, AHIP is providing indirect funding to groups that have disrupted congressional town hall meetings, spreading lies and misinformation about health reform, and trying to obscure its actual objective of manipulating the debate to create a legislative windfall that will give insurers nearly 50 million new customers while using taxpayer subsidies to help them pay for it.
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