The same Republican negotiators who have delayed, delayed, and denied health care reform on behalf of their patrons in the health insurance industry are now insisting that health care reform shouldn’t be rushed. Republicans and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus have been at the negotiating table for five months. Despite the eon they have been given, Baucus and his Republican friends have not been able to come up with a deal. In the interim, many Americans have gone bankrupt due to medical bills, seen their chronic illnesses become worse because they couldn’t afford proper medical treatment, and even died because they lacked access to health insurance.

Two-thirds of all bankruptcies are caused, at least in part, by medical bills. Since Baucus and his Republican friends began discussing health care reform, 366,000 people have been forced into bankruptcy by medical bills. In other words, there have been 366,000 stories like the story of Kathleen Aldrich. Aldrich is an ovarian cancer patient who lost her job, home, and doctor because an insurance bureaucrat at Blue Cross refused to pay for her chemotherapy. MSNBC reported on Aldrich’s story:

"(Aldrich) underwent more surgery and returned to chemotherapy treatments at Santa Barbara Hematology and Oncology, a large medical practice in the area. As the nausea and hair loss subsided in the spring of 2005, she began to receive bills from the practice that eventually totaled more than $15,000.

Aldrich was stunned, since her policy with Blue Shield of California had a $2,000 annual deductible and a co-payment schedule that was supposed to cap her maximum annual “out-of-pocket” cost at $7,000 when using a “preferred provider,” as Santa Barbara Hematology is…

Santa Barbara Hematology sent Aldrich’s case to a collection agency just a few months after the dispute began and refused to discuss the bill after that, a common practice in collections cases. Then, they say, Aldrich was dismissed as a patient for being “a pain.”

The sudden severing of the relationship with the young doctor whom Aldrich still reveres as the woman who twice saved her life was particularly painful."

The collection agency eventually sued Aldrich, who defaulted on a $7,000 judgment. Aldrich was then forced into bankruptcy. Earlier this year, a House subcommittee chaired by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) found that Blue Cross tied performance evaluations to the number of chronically ill individuals Blue Cross employees forced out of coverage.

Patients who are forced into the uninsured pool by insurance bureaucrats chasing after a good performance evaluation (and the five figure bonuses which can come with it), face a terrifying reality. These patients quickly realize that they cannot afford the treatment they need to stay healthy. The result is stories of cancer patients forgoing treatment, and worrying that they’ll die. CBS reported on this aspect of the broken health care system:

"I’m afraid I’ll die," said Denise Prosser. The 39-year-old can no longer afford to treat her thyroid cancer, since her husband lost his job and health insurance.

She doesn’t qualify for Medicare ("not disabled enough") or Medicaid (her husband makes too much in unemployment). She’s not sick enough for the emergency room – yet."

Inevitably, some of these patients will develop severe complications and die. Take the story of Mark Windsor, a photographer, who suffers from a treatable form of bone cancer. According to CNN, Windsor could not find health insurance because of his long history of cancer. He put his treatment off, his disease worsened, and he now has 18 months to live. Windsor told CNN:

"I’m angry at the greed of the insurance companies," Windsor said. "Everybody has the right to make profits. Every corporation has the right to be strong, make the right decisions. But I don’t think that it is proper to deny people with chronic disease the opportunity to get well."

Health care reform will stop these horrible situations by barring insurance companies from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions and dropping chronically ill policy holders from health insurance plans. Further, health care reform will require insurance companies to adopt a community rating structure–a structure which prohibits them from charging chronically ill patients higher premiums than healthy individuals and limits the cost of premiums for older enrollees. And health care reform would cap patients out of pocket expenses at $5,000 per year; in other words, patients could receive treatments which cost tens of thousands of dollars, but only have to pay $5,000 for them.

In short, the sooner we pass health care reform, the sooner the abuses of the health insurance industry stop. The sooner we pass health care reform, the sooner medical bankruptcy rates will be reduced. The sooner we pass health care reform, the sooner cancer patients like the ones in this post will be able to access affordable health insurance–and the treatment that comes with it. And the sooner we pass health care reform, the sooner people stop dying due to their lack of health insurance. But Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi, a key figure in the Secretive Six negotiations, told CBS that getting it right is the most important thing:

"Asked if the talks had collapsed, Enzi said, ‘I hope not.’ But he added: ‘We’re being rushed. Deadlines in this thing should be irrelevant. Getting it right has to be the relevant issue. . . . It is possible to get it right. It just can’t be done by next weekend.’"

Getting it right means getting it done, Senator.