Guaranteed Healthcare

RN and Single Mom Cannot Afford Daughter’s Insulin and Care

“I’ve been a registered nurse for over 30 years, and it sickens me what the managed care companies have done to our system,” said Barbara Masters, RN, of Sussex, N.J.  “As a nurse when you are in between jobs you are not insured, so you stop taking any meds, and I also have a 23-year-old still home who is going to school and a diabetic, who cannot qualify for any assistance because she lives with me and I make too much.

“So I am behind in my taxes as a single parent due to my husband’s death nine years ago and raising three girls alone.  It's been hard. One year I wrote to every drug company for a discount on the price of medicine for her (my diabetic daughter), and I was denied, even though I was on unemployment at the time and looking for a different job –  I still made too much for the year to qualify.

“I guess my best bet is to tell my daughter to relocate to Canada so she can live. We were even denied life insurance for her because of her diabetes, even though she is in good health. I can't keep up with my co-pays left for me to pay plus pay her high-cost insulin and diabetic supplies.”

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Sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

Eighty-two percent of Americans think the U.S. healthcare system should be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt (Commonwealth Fund, Aug. 7, 2008). America's nurses know that only single-payer, improved and expanded Medicare for all will fix our broken system and the tragedy of our devastated families. HR 676, by U.S. Rep John Conyers, is the most comprehensive, cost effective way to achieve guaranteed healthcare for all.

For more information, or to contact this patient: Liz Jacobs, RN 510/273-2232.