When Levi Ross was diagnosed with Cancer things looked bleak. A High School Senior looking forward to his future, the diagnosis of a form of spinal cancer called epitheliod sarcoma had put his life in jeopardy - moreso when his diagnosis was combined with Sam Brownback's for profit KanCare.
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“There’s no way that by staying in Kansas that I would have stayed alive,” Ross explained. “I feel pretty good considering I’ve had a massive surgery.”
“It’s really sad,” he said of the KanCare experience. “It’s very upsetting that we divide ourselves by states.”
While Ross's story tells us of a patient who managed to leave the state and receive lifesaving care, it also brings to mind those who are trapped with minimal to no resources, who find that Sam Brownback's KanCare is exactly what the Republican warned against: a death panel.
Kansas Department of Health and Environment had hoped that cases like Ross would provide a testament to how efficient and well managed privatizing medicaid would be - saving money and lives. KanCare providers, however, had the ultimate final say. In the end, the goal of a treatment out of state to save his life wasn't something they were willing to provide to the Ross family. Thanks to charitable giving of St. Jude's hospital in Tennessee and attention to his plight, Levi Ross has a future ahead.
It would be one thing if the situation with Ross' family was unique, but over the last year more Kansas families have found themselves receiving the short end of a privatized system that Governor Brownback imagined would save money.
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However, on November 15, Bullers sent the state a signed form that allows officials to discuss his health information with the media. But Angela de Rocha, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, did not return a call seeking comment about Bullers' health.
In an earlier interview, de Rocha offered an analogy for Medicaid recipients upset by KanCare's reduction in services. She says it's as if she had been giving someone a new car every year and then suddenly stopped.
"Your natural response to that is going to be, 'Why is she being so mean to me?'" de Rocha tells The Pitch. "That's just human nature. It's very difficult to take away something once you get it. People get used to it. They think that's what you need."
To Bullers, access to caregivers isn't like getting a brand-new car, but rather is a life-and-death matter.
With the state of Kansas viewing essential health care as the equivalent of a new car, it is easy to understand how the policy of rejection for ongoing and new critical treatment occurs.
For Kansans like Finn Bullers, the potential cuts put at risk far more than his financial life.
In an interview with Finn in August of 2014, I was told: "People who have any means will be forced to leave. Heaven help those who don't."
There is good news for the family of a young man who had his life put at risk due under Brownback's cost cutting. It isn't the first and it won't be the last. They have a story we all know and we can cheer.
The question for many Kansans is: how many voices will find themselves unable to speak due to lack of services as Kansas refuses Medicaid Expansion?