Cancer is never convenient. But imagine, if you
will, fighting the disease while living in Allegany County. For comprehensive oncology
services a patient from Wellsville and the person driving him or her would have
to drive almost two hours one-way to Wilmot Cancer Institute in Rochester or
Roswell Park in Buffalo. It’s known that over 600 Allegany County cancer
patients make that trip to Wilmot multiple times every year and the numbers are
likely similar for drives to Roswell.
To address this glaring need and give Southern Tier
residents access to cancer care closer to home, Noyes Memorial Hospital of
Dansville is working in partnership with Wilmot and Jones Memorial of
Wellsville to create a regional cancer center. Construction of the $10.4
million project will begin later this month with the 6,800 square foot center
giving residents of Allegany, Livingston and Steuben counties the best in care
and the latest in technology.
It shouldn’t be this way. The hospitals and the
public shouldn’t be on the hook for spending such money to build this center
(the endeavor has secured $4.1 million from three donors alone), nor should
have Allegany County area residents been subjected to long, uncomfortable rides
to get cancer treatments over the past few decades. That’s because full
oncology services have been available at Patterson Cancer Center in
Coudersport, Pennsylvania, which is only 40 minutes away from Wellsville.
But availability and accessibility are entirely
different animals when it comes to healthcare.
Due to laws that inhibit and/or outright prevent
the sale and use of health insurance across state borders, Patterson has always
been considered “out of network” for most Allegany County residents. So, they
couldn’t make the short, convenient trip south into Pennsylvania and, instead,
were forced to make long, agonizing trips north.
This is not unique to New York. Consider the state
of California, which has a very long border. There are numerous horror stories
of residents of mountain communities who have to take long, dangerous, and
meandering trips into the heart of the state to get the care they need, when
commutes to Reno and other out-of-state cities would be quicker and safer.
The topic of interstate insurance is nothing new –
it was a major Republican talking point during the development of the
Affordable Care Act. The GOP cited the cost savings that would be had were
insurers able to work across state borders and the insured were able to buy
national or regional plans. Simple things like eliminating repetitive costs
(like insurers having to staff their own corporate bureaucracy for each
individual state) would save billions. That, in conjunction with the savings to
the consumer gleaned from increased competition (and the race to the bottom, if
you will), would cause health insurance premiums to drop dramatically, easily
by double-digit percentage points compared to current values.
While a compelling case was made, it never made it
into the ACA. Despite the alleged drive to make everything “affordable”,
interstate insurance was glossed over by the Democrats and the Obama
Administration.
That’s too bad, because not only do the limits of
state borders create costly insurance policies, but they also create heartache
and pain for those personally affected by the limitations imposed upon
them.
To right those wrongs, we have a Constitutional
obligation to allow a multi-state insurance market (its interstate trade, and
human beings are pretty darn portable across state borders) and we also have a
moral obligation for it – we cannot claim to have a fair and just healthcare
system if we purposely rob the sick of convenient access to care. Someone who has
cancer already has a decreased quality of life, why should insurance laws make
it even worse for them?
From the 12 October 2015 Greater Niagara Newspapers
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