NOTE: This is the second in a multi-part series
about the 2017 Texas Legislature and the devastating effects of their decision
to create a healthcare nightmare for public-ed retirees across the state. Part I focused on a retired teacher under the
age of 65. The follow-up to her story
will likely be Part III; however, I am waiting for her situation to be resolved
before her medication runs out in January.
And there are plenty more stories to tell.
I read a November post by a woman
named Margaret on the Retired Texas Educators with TRS/Retirement Concerns
Facebook page. (Just the fact that there
is such a page speaks volumes about what the Texas Legislature has done to
us.) Here is Margaret's post:
The post moved me to tears. How in the world could a retired public-ed
employee, promised throughout her career that she would have affordable health
care in her retirement, be denied a walker she NEEDED due to multiple broken
bones? Who will answer for the two falls
she took as a result of being denied this walker, the first causing her to
break her right foot and damage the bones in the foot and ankle of the other
leg severely damaged in the original fall, the second causing injury to one
shoulder, both feet, one wrist, and her back?
I cannot even imagine the pain she must have endured then and must still
be enduring daily.
“If I were the only one who has
suffered needlessly because of delays and denials, I could accept it, but there
are so many like me….Please pray for all retired teachers who are dealing with
this and are too old and too whipped to fight this. Why should I have to fight so hard to get
equipment that would have prevented fractures and back and shoulder injuries?”
Inexcusable. Heartbreaking. Shameful. And true.
Why, indeed?
I reached out to Margaret, asking
permission to share her story. She
immediately said yes, hoping that by sharing her story—and the stories of so
many others—our legislators would finally listen and give us the health care
they have so generously given THEIR retired counterparts, most of whom spent
far less time in the Texas Legislature than we spent in classrooms, driving
school buses, serving meals to students, cleaning school facilities….
I asked Margaret how this all
started. She explained that after her
original fall caused by stepping in an armadillo hole, she went to see an
orthopedic surgeon. Humana would not
approve the boot the surgeon said she needed, despite three broken bones in her
ankle. Instead, she was told, she would
need the nursing home--where she was sent after the fall--to provide her with a
boot. At the nursing home, Margaret was
told they do not normally do this. They
ordered one, but it did not fit her properly. Later, she had surgery to set the
broken bones. The surgeon wanted her to
spend the night; again Humana denied it.
She had to be taken back to the nursing home by ambulance, and she said
she screamed in agony throughout the next day.
“I needed hospital care,” Margaret told me.
Later, when she was released to go
home, Margaret had a sprained wrist and shoulder and could not use a standard
walker. The orthopedic surgeon made it
clear she needed a platform walker.
Humana denied it, their third denial for something Margaret’s surgeon
insisted she needed.
You know from Margaret’s post above
what happened next. Only after suffering
two more devastating falls did Humana approve her platform walker.
“No one should suffer like I did,” Margaret told me.
“No one should suffer like I did,” Margaret told me.
And in one of her follow-up
posts, she wrote: “All the medical professionals
told me to switch to Medicare and a supplement because of Humana’s horrible
coverage. I am switching.”
This, Margaret, is your reward for
dedicating your life to Texas students.
