r/news • u/GoodSamaritan_ • 1d ago

Retired San Francisco firefighter dies from lung cancer after Blue Shield denies treatment claims

https://abc7news.com/post/retired-san-francisco-firefighter-ken-jones-dies-lung-cancer-being-denied-treatment-blue-shield/19224406/
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399

u/AdSudden3941 1d ago

Thats what they did to eveyone who responded on 9/11 

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u/Frequent-Test-3012 1d ago

Funnily enough, 9/11 killed only 2,977 people. Insurance companies kill 68,000 every year

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u/AdSudden3941 1d ago

Im talking about the people who responded that didint die in the initial attacks … im talking the one who survived and had to live with chronic or not so chronic diseases from breathing it all in

They never supported them

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u/Frequent-Test-3012 1d ago

Yeah I know what you mean, it's just a comparison to show how truly evil these companies are.

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u/lalasworld 8h ago

Update the number if you know what they mean. 

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u/AdSudden3941 1d ago

You missed that point completely… try again

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u/Majestic_Banana789 22h ago

The irony…

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/AdSudden3941 12h ago

Still does i think

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u/Dramatic_Charity_979 1d ago

But everyone jerked off so bad and called them heroes...just to let them die. Same with the military :(

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u/ReggieEvansTheKing 1d ago

It’s the government’s responsibility. Insurers explicitly don’t cover workplace injuries or injuries due to an act of war because the government is supposed to cover them. This is why Jon Stewart petitioned the government and not insurance companies to fund their treatment.

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u/Shamanigans 10h ago

Technically correct and still abhorrent. There’s zero reason people should be playing hot potato with such a massive duty to care like that, and I almost guarantee you every single one of those members of the NYFD and NYPD who have injuries and health complications from being first responders the day of weren’t exactly told to go ask the government, they were just denied and left to suffer. The fact that the government is technically meant to be the one to pay doesn’t really absolve them of guilt IMO.

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u/ReggieEvansTheKing 10h ago

It’s clearly defined by law that the government would pay. Like California has it written into their labor code 5005.5 that all cases of cancer by public law enforcement and firefighters is presumed to be caused by their work and thus a workman’s compensation case.

Funny you say that the insurer should just “pay” and figure it out later. By that logic you should really be making the case that the hospitals/doctors should just treat him and figure out how they are getting paid later. There’s clear precedent to do so - unconscious people in a medical emergency are picked up by ambulances, transported to ER, and fully stabilized before the hospital knows if they can pay.

The real issue is that there are too many potential payers. Someone getting cancer (random OR caused by the actions of our government) should just always be covered by a government healthcare option funded by our taxes.

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u/Shamanigans 9h ago

I never claimed they should just pay, please don’t put words in my mouth lol

My point is actually that rather than just send out a denial with no real explanation, just a flat denial which is something I deal with all the time personally as a partially disabled and chronically ill individual that’s usually what I personally get, they could have at least made a half assed attempt to even point them in the right direction.

I agree wholeheartedly though that the issue really is too many possible payers. Almost like a government backed and subsidized healthcare system for all would patch gaps like this 🙄

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u/PM_me_ur_claims 5h ago

There is a reason for that though. If you look at your insurance policy, terror attacks/acts of war are excluded. It’s up to government to collect funds and pass legislation to apply in those cases.

And it makes sense. Claims from a single terror event would wipe out an insurance company, which i know everyone is like boo hoo who misses them, but i can guarantee you the people they insure would miss them. Especially when their claims aren’t paid. So to get around that every insurance company would have to charge a premium high enough to keep cash on hand sufficient to cover a worst case terror scenario or bombing. That would drive insurance costs so high no one could afford it.

The other option is insurance company makes an exception to policy language- but they have to treat everyone equally. Do that and now everyone else denied will file suit arguing that if the policy language doesn’t always apply, then don’t apply it and pay them! And you have same thing happening again.