IMHO, when a doctor sees obvious symptoms of cancer and either says there’s nothing wrong with the person (as in my mother’s case) or thinks it’s an infection (as in the other two cases, above), that is a form of denial of service.

None of these were situations where the cancer was obvious only in retrospect: anyone could see what was ailing these people, and in my mother’s case, someone did see it. I paraded her by an internist, the husband of a friend and neighbor, who knew exactly what was wrong from the moment he examined her. Unfortunately, he was not in Blue Cross’s HMO, and so my parents couldn’t afford to have him treat her. And everyone who knew my mother — and that she had smoked heavily since the age of 16; spent 10 years living next to an oil refinery, breathing fumes and drinking God only knows what was in the water; and watched both her parents die of cancer in their early 40s — also knew what was wrong with her. That’s not incompetence: that’s deliberate neglect.

When you see that sort of thing repeated over and over among HMO patients, it’s hard not to conclude that something systemic is involved.

The state used to use CIGNA’s HMO, but now CIGNA will have an EPO only. Aetna and Blue Cross/Blue Shield will offer EPOs and PPOs.

So the EPO is definitely gone, then? La Maya went in person to HR less than a week ago and was told they didn’t know what insurers we would have or what plans would be offered. There’s not even any mention of open enrollment on the HR site today…and open enrollment starts Monday!

Update: Of course: United Healthcare. Doesn’t compute on my internal hard drive…one of my neighbors died in their HMO — same old story: docs told him a big lump on his neck was an infection, kept telling him that for months, all the while he was being eaten up by cancer. Same illustrious outfit told the past-child-bearing-age wife of one of my colleagues that a persistent breast discharge was a milk duct infection, when all her symptoms were classic breast cancer…which is exactly what she had, come to find out after three months of ineffective antibiotic treatment. So when I hear “United” I hear “not an option”

But now there is a protest of the contract, but we don’t know by whom. Maybe United is protesting, or one of the other insurers that are not coming back.