MSNBC Countdown w/ KEITH OLBERMANN - 9 February 2010: Insurance company refuses cancer treatements.
OLBERMANN: "The startling word that Great Britain's formal inquiry into the Iraq war may seek evidence from members of the Bush administration, next.
But now, tonight's first quick comment, and sticking with obstructionism, the little picture from health care reform remains much bigger than the big picture.
Kyler Van Noker has cancer. It was in remission, it's back now. The doctors have a do or die treatment that his insurance company considers investigational/experimental, so it will not pay for it. This is particularly odd because the insurers, HealthAmerica, covered two earlier investigational/experimental therapies for Van Knoker - stuff that had not even been approved yet by the FDA. Just a coincidence that the latest therapy for which it will not pay costs $110,000 for two treatments. Fortunately, Kyler Van Noker's hospital is giving it to him FREE while he sues HealthAmerica. Possibly because, otherwise Kyler Van Noker will give him his LOOK.
That's Kyler Van Noker.
Kyler is 5. That's the look he gave the Philly Daily News photographer. His disease is neuroblastoma, the childhood cancer that keeps creating tumors throughout the body. And HealthAmerica will not help him, nor his parents, nor the hospital pay for the drugs he needs to stay alive.
And there is your death panel, Bill Kristol.
There is your death panel, Betsy McCoy.
There is your death panel, Sen. Grassley.
THERE is your death panel, Sarah Palin."
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20091202_Ronnie_Polaneczky__The_insurance_company_vs__Kyler_s_life.htmlPosted on Wed, Dec. 2, 2009
Insurance vs. KylerBy Ronnie Polaneczky
Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Columnist
LOOKING at Kyler VanNocker, whose fifth birthday was Monday, it's impossible to fathom that he could die from the disease he's battling.
He's bright-eyed and energetic as he tears around the house he shares in Edgewater Park, N.J., with his parents, Paul and Maria, and siblings Kaden, 6, and Anelise, 3. He's just as active at pre-school, where he's learning his numbers and the alphabet.
- snip -
MIBG is "less toxic than chemotherapy, and is usually tolerated well by patients," says Grupp, a world expert in neuroblastoma, thanks to CHOP's status as a national referral center for kids with the rare disease. MIBG therapy is the only effective treatment available to Kyler at this stage of his illness. Without it, he won't live to see his sixth birthday.
Unbelievably, Kyler's insurance carrier, Harrisburg-based HealthAmerica, has denied coverage for the treatment, which it considers "investigational/experimental" because there is "inadequate evidence in the peer-reviewed published clinical literature regarding its effectiveness."
The therapy is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, another criterion that HealthAmerica requires.
"It's considered experimental because not enough kids with recurring neuroblastoma live long enough" to become candidates for MIBG, says Paul VanNocker, 44, a heavy-industrial-equipment salesman (Maria, 37, is a homemaker). "So, really, all treatment at this stage of Kyler's disease is considered experimental."
Only about 650 children in the United States are diagnosed each year with neuroblastoma. Half of them, including Kyler, have the most lethal form of the disease. So it's tough to study a large enough cohort of patients like Kyler to yield research results that HealthAmerica might consider valid.
But that doesn't mean MIBG is ineffective.
"It's considered the standard of care in Europe and the United States for recurrent neuroblastoma," says Grupp. "It's not an unproven treatment with no basis in medical science. Actually, the results are often very good."
Kyler's Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198597602804&ref=share
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