OUR STORIES

Health care is a human right, yet private insurance companies often create impossible barriers to reduce the amount they pay out for care. They do this to increase their profits and rewards to shareholders and executives.

Care Over Cost helps people cut through this red tape to get the care they need. Here are a few of their stories.

Jenn Coffey speaks at a town hall hosted by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal about Medicare for All on May 17, 2023.

Carly's Story

Carly Morton lives in western Pennsylvania, and United Healthcare refused to pay for surgery to correct nMALS, a condition she was born with that caused her to be unable to eat. In combination with related conditions Carly had a majority chance of dying within 5 years.

Care Over Cost helped her win this care after months of public pressure. Together, we created a petition signed by thousands of supporters and reached out to the office of her U.S. Senator, Bob Casey, on her behalf. UnitedHealthcare gave prior authorization for the surgery, then denied the claim afterwards and refused to pay the bill.

Only after she participated in our April action and the resulting follow-up meeting with UnitedHealth in June did UnitedHealthcare finally pay this bill.

Jenn's Story

Jenn Coffey from Manchester, New Hampshire, is a former Republican state legislator who has spent 20 years of her life providing medical assistance to patients as an EMT and LNA in ambulances and emergency departments. Now, she’s in severe need of ongoing medical assistance for cancer and its aftermath but has had to struggle with her private health insurance corporation, UnitedHealthcare, every step of the way.

Jenn has a United Healthcare Medicare (dis)Advantage plan. As a result of her cancer treatments, she now suffers from Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) which causes intense pain that has kept her in the hospital for weeks at a time. Jenn needs infusions and other medications for pain management, vision, and mental clarity. She’s unable to pay for them, however, and has already sold most of her belongings to be able to pay for some of her treatments. UnitedHealthcare initially refused to cover these medications despite them being commonly prescribed to treat pain.

Because of the public pressure we were able to generate together, Jenn was able to initially win prior authorization for these infusions, but she needs them on a regular basis, and UnitedHealthcare frequently requires prior authorization for each infusion, sometimes denies, and even when they approve they will later delay or deny payment. 

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