Fatal Mistake Update


Wrote about Scott after reading the NY Times article last October and wondered what became of him.  He died 3 days after the article in the NY Times.  Here is link to an interview with the Times columnist shortly after the death of his friend.
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/18/163188233/times-health-care-op-ed-gets-unexpected-response

Below is my original post from Oct 2012

Fatal Mistake

 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-possibly-fatal-mistake.html

This article although mostly about the state of healthcare for the uninsured, illustrates the sometimes profound benefit of early cancer detection. Symptoms ignored and untreated because of a lack of health insurance resulted in unpaid costs of many hundreds of thousand dollars and counting.  Also a life will almost certainly be shortened significantly.

We all help pay for these costs through local taxes and higher insurance premiums.

The article brought to mind my own diagnosis and treatment. http://pulltight.blogspot.com/2010/05/43-life-throws-curve.html.  Wonder what I would have done when my first symptoms appeared if I had not been insured?  Would I now be in the same shape as Scott?  As it turns out my early symptoms lead to an early diagnosis and treatment.  Probably I will live another 30 years.  But not so for Scott.

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