Health Insurance Agent Faces Potentially Deadly Disease

Stacy Van Buren's job was to help protect peoples' health. As a licensed health insurance agent she listened to circumstances and then advised people as to the best and most affordable health insurance plan for them. Stacy says at times it was hard to hear people's troubling predicaments. "I almost cried sometimes. There was one woman,” she says. “She was 61 years old, had just been daignosed with cancer, and her health insurance was about to run out. She was lost and didn't know where to turn," But Stacy herself did not have health insurance. The 39-year-old single mother of four dropped her coverage which cost her about $250 a month to help pay other bills. "I had to choose between putting food on the table and health insurance."

Stacy was experiencing a challenging year, and it wasn't just about her finances. Her brother was in a horrible car accident and her aunt had recently discovered she had cancer. However, nothing could prepare for her what she was about to discover after she went in for a routine check-up at with her doctor last month. "I didn't expect anything bad to come of it," she says. But it was bad, her test results came back abnormal and the doctor said she needed to see a specialist. She referred her to a clinic. Stacy says arriving to that clinic is was her wake-up call when she realized the biggest obstacle was that she didn't have health insurance. She says she waited for hours before someone at the clinic told her she needed to come back in a month to be seen.

"I'm not an argumentative person but I had to do something,” she said. “I got in the nurse’s face and said, 'there has to be something you can do!’," Persistance eventually led to a doctor reviewing her test results. She said the frantic look on his face told her all she needed to know. Stacy was diagnosed with High Grade Squamos Intraepithelial Lesion, CIN III/carcinoma insitu/severe dysplasia which are abnormal cells found during the performance of a PAP Smear. The medical term may be difficult to read, but what it means to her future is not. Stacy's could die and without health insurance she may not have a chance to fight.

Since Stacey is uninsured the doctor could not run necessary tests and sent her to the emergency room. Stacy says things turned worse: "Visiting the emergency room was 11 hours of hell. It was ridiculous how many people were there and they were not true emergencies. They were there to see the doctor just like me.” A doctor performed the necessary tests on Stacy, and she is left waiting for the results.

Her biggest regret is not having health insurance. "I really wish I had insurance." Stacy is encouraging everyone to purchase health insurance. "Even if the deductible is high. You really need something," Stacey says. She says the healthcare system desperately needs reformed. "People need someone to take care of them, the country needs something, and they don't have it," Stacy says. Stacy may soon need someone to take care of her. The question for Stacy, as with other uninsured Americans is, who will?