Robert sez,
Last year, my mother had breast cancer (cancer runs in my family like wildfire). She had to have a mastectomy, which is not trivial surgery; it's not open-heart surgery, but it does require a large incision to be made, which is always dangerous. And yet the insurance company mandated that she be out of the hospital within 24 hours. This is something that a lot of insurance companies have been doing, to a lot of patients who undergo serious surgeries (not just breast-cancer patients); get the patient in and out of the hospital in 24 hours. Costs stay down, profits stay up and the CEO gets another fifty-million-dollar bonus at the end of the year. Having seen my mother in the hospital when she got out, I can say — and I hope you believe me when I do say — that twenty-four hours is not enough recuperation time for surgery like that.
Lifetime TV has put a petition on their web site for people to sign. The goal: get the Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act passed, an act that would require insurance companies to cover a minimum 48-hour hospital stay following such a surgery. It's about eliminating the "drive-through mastectomy" where women are forced to go home hours after surgery against the wishes of their doctor, still groggy from anesthesia and sometimes with drainage tubes still attached (my mother went home with one still attached).
(Thanks, Robert!)
