A Florida mom, Leslie Elder, has passed away after battling several cancers that went untreated due to denial of medicaid. Elder would still be alive today if she was granted and aware of her medial options. Read more below.
“I honestly don’t know how much more I can endure,” Elder wrote earlier this year in a Facebook message to her friend Liz Jacobs. “I am fighting for (Medicaid) and disability. I can’t work I sit in bed I cry a lot. I am still fighting for healthcare and still fighting foreclosure.
“I am so upset but perhaps it was not meant to be. I don’t know anything anymore,” said Elder, who died in July at age 63 without insurance coverage.Medicare at stake Campaign’s Medicare scare tactics Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal explained
As she typed the note, Elder could scarcely breathe. Her lungs had filled with fluid over several months; her respiratory system was shutting down. After visits to the emergency room and several free clinics, Elder was finally diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.But what makes her family bristle: Elder did not have to die.
If she had had health care, “Absolutely she’d still be here,” said Jacquelyn Elder, Leslie’s daughter, adding that Hodgkin’s lymphoma has a high survival rate. “That is something really hard to deal with.”“I know she felt scared because there were no options. Why do something (about illnesses) when you know you can’t get proper care to fix it?”
Except there were options.The Affordable Care Act, which takes full effect in 2014, was supposed to save people like Elder (with pre-existing conditions and no medical coverage) in the interim by way of high-risk pools, also known as the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan or PCIP.
The pools are supposed to be a safety net, but many, like Elder, are falling through the cracks.
