The Recession's Impact: Closing The Clinic

60 Minutes: Bad Economy Leaves Cancer Patients Without Health Insurance In Dire Straits

(CBS)  Yolanda Coleman is 45 years old and a single mother. Her breast cancer has entered her bones. 60 Minutes found her at home, bedridden, with a broken hip. It's hard to know how much she could benefit from chemo. But when Pelley met her, she was receiving almost no care at all.

"A few months ago there wouldn't have been any question about whether you could have your next round of chemotherapy. UMC would have been available and you could've gone there," Pelley said.

"Yes," Coleman replied.

Asked what it means to her that this program is gone, Coleman told Pelley, "It's devastating. It's devastating."

She worked her whole life as a maid in hotels and as a truck driver, which earned her better money to support her 9-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter.

"As we sit here at this moment you don't know whether there will be another round of chemo for you?" Pelley asked.

"I don't know. It's just so uncertain right now I really don't know. I just trying to live it day by day and trying to keep my spirits up and you know trying to get well so I can take of the two…I got in there, I gotta take care of them," she replied.

She had three rounds of chemotherapy under her insurance plan. Then, she became too sick to work, and lost her insurance - exactly the situation UMC used to take care of.

"You know Yolanda, I think most people watching this interview think to themselves that if they get cancer and they don't have health insurance that somebody’s going to take care of them," Pelley remarked.

"No, no, there's nobody to take care of you," she said.

When Pelley asked Kathy Silver if what is happening in her Las Vegas hospital is unique or whether this kind of thing is happening all over the country, she told Pelley, "I think this is happening to some degree, probably, every public hospital across the country. I think it's happening to us to a greater degree because we are we're sort of the epicenter of what's happening. We're a demonstration project, if you would, of all the things that can go wrong at once."

Nick Spiritos, the doctor from the closed women's clinic, has not been able to leave his patients behind. "We've taken care of these ladies for years. They've been our family. You're not gonna push them out in hard times," he told Pelley.

He took a storeroom in his private office and spent $100,000 turning it into a chemo clinic for ovarian and uterine cancers.

"And you told them they can come here to your clinic and receive free medical care?" Pelley asked.

"Correct," Spiritos replied. "We've asked those who can pay, pay. If they can pay $5 a month, they pay $5 a month. If they can pay $20 a month. We're asking them to do what they can. And those who can do nothing, that's our job to take care of them."

Spiritos expects 10 percent of his patients won't be able to pay, so he and his partners will cover them. They've put collection boxes out at convenient stores around town. Other private clinics are also providing free care. And charities, including the Susan G. Komen Foundation, are stretching to help the desperate.

But these are emergency measures.

[goodJobGibbons]

Las Vegas is full of evil. It killed my father and killed my mother. THey said she had arthritis and she had bone cancer. Go figure, what ever vegas can do to get rid of the population it will do. Gibbons is an idiot. Bush an even bigger #$(%Q and now we - the low income and uninsured population will die at their hands.

Indecently not all of Nevada sucks as bad as Vegas, my suggestion... MOVE WHILE YOU ARE STILL ALIVE

[Renee_E_B]

Thanks for helping me reach Roy - he has passed away.

[Renee_E_B]

Thank you for helping me reach Roy - He has passed away.

[cancersurvivor]

I mailed a check to the Women's Cancer Center the day after I saw this story (to the address above) I received a nice reply from them in the mail today thanking me. Could minutes do some kind of follow up to let us know how many people responded to the clinic? I hope my small contribution will go towards helping some one receive treatment. Thanks to Dr. Spiritos for opening his office and heart to treat these patients. Please support healthcare reform everyone!!!!! you might be the next person to face an illness and need treatment.

[sgillesp]

two comments:
1. I mailed a check to the address for the clinic that has been given on these pages, and it came back, "no such street" - can someone please check into that and update it?
2. why do some people seem to respond to every problem we have by ranting about "illegals," even though rational study of the subject has yielded the facts that it is NOT "illegals" who are causing the health care system to fall apart? And how on earth can it be Obama's fault when he has been in office about 11 weeks?? It seems to me that there is a subset of people in this country who shout "illegals" as the scapegoats for everything (the second thing they shout is "Reid/Pelosi"). Time for everyone else to stand up and get something done around here.

[steveh46a]

"Yes. We have huge healthcare problems that need to be resolved, but I am tired of people comparing US healthcare to Europe and the rest of the world. First of all, we are not the richest nation in the world. "

Actually we ARE the richest nation in the world. We are the richest nation in the history of the world. Don't take my word for it, check the CIA World Factbook. It's unfortunate that someone who claims to be a healthcare provider would be so ignorant as to believe that countries like Portugal, Italy, Finland, and every other developed country in the world can somehow manage to provide health care to every single one of their citizens, but the poor USA just can't do it. Actually, it's a shame that so many people seem to believe that. We can do it, we just lack the will.

[faslehood]

To "Chickenwater" What you said, about chemotherpy that it would not help some of these patients in Nevada that you think are terminal. And what about the ones on dialysis. I had a doctor tell my friend he was terminal. And guess what. His cancer treatment worked. But he had good insurance. If he had your advice. he would be dead. His doctor told him he did not have a chance. And for you to say in your other statement is false to imply or subggest that the chemo, is not affective for these terminally sick people. Are not God? And to knock down Europes heath care. Do you live there? Ask anyone in Europe if that would give up there health care for ours. And the answer is no! And to blame our problems just on the boders is a narrow perception of the overall problem in health care for profit. You are a health care provider. So are you practicing the hipocratic oath. Any ignorance is placed upond the greed that contols it for profit. The question for you? Would you turn down a patient with out any health care and could not afford to pay for it? HMO's kill people for managed profit.. And I am a witness to it. And by the way, Europe has it problems and it isn't a island. And in Holland, Sweden, Demark, It is very exspensive to live there. But have free college and health care and no evictions for not paying a medical bill. What have you done as a heath care provider to solve and help with this problem? Your just complaining that, one small part of the turth. That showed darkness in health care. And you think that it is to ignorant to show for some viewers. People are going to be dead, because they were cut off from there health care. What part of that story you did not understand. It was criminal. Freedom is only what you invest in. Put a number on that. %%%%%%%%

[maryscleareyes]

I am extremely disappointed in 60 minutes. This case did not portray the complete story. A hospital must pay its bills, i.e. the pharmaceutical companies want their money for these chemo drugs. It?s basic math : income minus expenses - if there is no income, and the ?for-profit? pharmaceutical companies want to get paid to make a profit, how can the provider continue to treat for free?

Why did 60 minutes never mention the overpriced pharmaceutical industry? Take the ?for-profit? out of healthcare and we might get somewhere! Why are the drugs in the USA so much more costly than other countries? Look at all the commercials on the TV??.follow the money!

[vanessaroman]

Like most people, I was utterly shocked by this episode of 60 minutes. What's at stake here is not illegal or legal citizens, but the future of a nation. How will we explain to our children that Grandma died because she didn't have enough money to get treated? How will we rationalize this to the 8 year old who is learning about justice and freedom for all at school?
Most disappointing in this show was the complete isolation of the problem. The only solution documented by 60 Minutes was one doctor who spent $100,000 of his own money to set up a free clinic within his private office. Clearly one doctor can not solve this dire problem.
There is a nationwide movement for healthcare. Physicians for a National Health Program is one group working on getting legislation passed. And I'm sure they would have happily agreed to an interview with 60 Minutes had they been asked.
Unfortunately 60 minutes does the job of the corporate media by presenting a heinous problem which scares us and then leaves us distraught and disempowered. I think this may be referred to as "divide and conquer". Let's pull together and recognize that the only people benefiting from this broken system are the elites, not the illegals or uninsured.

[chickenwater]

Consider this: 80% of healthcare costs are spent on 20% of the population

watch the cbs news video about UMC austin ER
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4915099n%3fsource=search_video