By Courtney D. Clark
Register-Herald Reporter
—
It was a mere month ago that Deborah Cox was working as a nurse in fairly good health.
Today, the 51-year-old says her life is upside down because of a leukemia diagnosis and extreme health care costs.
Diagnosed in early February, the Beaver woman said she had to take off work for treatment and doesn’t know when — or if — she will be able to go back.
“I used all my vacation and paid time off, and I have just been so sick,” Cox said in an interview with The Register-Herald. “I know that if I don’t get well enough soon, I am going to lose my job and health coverage.”
Currently employed and still paying for insurance, Cox says her health care provider pays for oral chemotherapy she takes once a day.
“Just that one Gleevec pill is $6,000 a month,” she explained. “If I can’t go back to work, which it doesn’t seem like I’m going to be able to, how am I going to pay for this?”
She says that is why she believes so strongly in legislation for national health care reform.
“You work all your life and then you get sick,” Cox added, “and the tests, the medication, it’s all so expensive. A working person just doesn’t have that kind of money to pay out.”
Cox’s oncologist, Dr. Hassan Amjad, says as a medical doctor, this is an everyday fight.
“What has happened to Deborah Cox could happen to any of us,” said Amjad, “and we’re still debating whether or not we should have health reform.
“It’s not just an issue of immigrants, poor or lazy people looking for entitlement,” the oncologist said. “There are a lot of average Americans that need some help.”
According to Amjad, who has been practicing in Beckley and Oak Hill for more than 30 years, the present bill being carried in Congress is only a start.
“The main thing is it provides coverage for someone like Deborah Cox,” Amjad said Thursday. “For people like her, it becomes a matter of life and death.”
Cox says she would like to see the passage of nationwide health care so everyone will be afforded at least basic care.
“On top of being sick and diagnosed with cancer, I’m going to have to worry about how I am going to be treated,” Cox said.
“I hope people see the need for this,” she continued, “and not just for people sitting around doing nothing. It’s working people that take a chance on losing everything by becoming ill.”
— E-mail: cclark@registerherald.com
