Long Island is A War Zone Fitzpatrick and Graf Need To Sign Onto Insurance Bill
Maureen Ledden Rossi
In the last decade, Long Island has lost well over two thousand young people in the prime of their lives to the opiate and heroin epidemic. It’s a war zone on Long Island and the epidemic is by far the greatest societal issue facing Nassau and Suffolk counties.
Unless a critical piece of Insurance legislation is passed in the House and Senate before session ends in mid-June, dozens and dozens more will succumb this summer. Dozens and dozens of families will come to know the worst pain imaginable and dozens and dozens of parents will join the club no parent ever wants to join.
Over and over again young addicts are being denied the proper medical treatment for their addiction by the Insurance companies even though parents or employers have paid premiums for years, sometimes decades. They are told, you don’t use enough Heroin for a Detox, you must fail at outpatient treatment before we provide you with inpatient treatment. The big Insurance Company Executives, the profiteers, who actually make more money when they deny claims, are calling the shots. They are making life and death decisions for the young people of Long Island – they are playing Russian Roulette daily with lives. These decisions must be made by medical professionals who are trained in the field of addiction. Time and time again, we have watched young people be denied treatment even after they have overdosed. Far too often, they have gone on to overdose again and succumb.
This Legislation calls for medical professionals to make the decision as to whether a patient needs a medical detoxification, inpatient or outpatient treatment. Right now forty-seven members of the House have signed on and seventeen members of the Senate have followed suit. Senator Kemp Hannon (R, LI) is the architect of the Senate Bill. Assemblyman Mike Cusick (D, Staten Island) is the creator of the Assembly Bill. Staten Island made the cover the New York Times last week as they are now grappling with a heroin epidemic that rivals Long Islands.
Presently only two lawmakers on Long Island, which many experts feel is the epicenter of the nation’s youth heroin epidemic, have yet to sign on. They are Assemblyman Michael Fitzpatrick and Assemblyman Al Graf. We, in the Movement, implore these law makers and their peers to sign onto this vital piece of legislation.
True fiscal conservatives would get on the bus; they would sign the legislation because there is an enormous cost shift to the tax payer when Insurance Companies deny treatment. Over and over again addicts are advised to get off their parents policy and get on Medicaid so they can be treated for their life-threatening disease. There is a very small window of opportunity to act on when an addict finally gives up and wants to get better. Families suffer for years, they exhaust their funds, and there is often an incarceration and trips to the hospital. The physical and mental suffering accompanying a Heroin withdrawal is unbearable and an addict will do anything for their next fix. They do commit crimes, they do rob pharmacies and homes and even their own families. Fiscal conservatives can probably tell you off the top of their head what it costs to incarcerate someone – it’s an astronomical cost; about fifty-thousand dollars a year per inmate. This is the largest and least thought about cost shift from the Insurance companies to the tax-payer. There is another societal cost no one ever mentions, addicts are driving high on our roads claiming lives in vehicular accidents.
On Tuesday May 6th over fifty Long Island residents from the Movement headed to Albany to lobby and fight for the passage of a critical Insurance Bill. The Movement is comprised of family members of those addicted to Heroin or Opioids, parents who have lost their children and members of coalitions like the ones we have in Smithtown; The Commack Coalition for Caring and Kings Park in the kNOw. Experts from the Prevention and Addiction field led the contingent with Smithtown’s Dr. Jeffrey Reynolds from L.I.C.AD.D. as our unofficial leader.
We split into small groups and met as many elected officials as possible throughout the day. There was Mark’s Dad, a reserved man who is a retired NYPD Captain. Mark was twenty seven, a striking young man who was a professional fisherman out east, he died only six months ago. There was Lori whose bravery was not lost on anyone that day. Her beautiful son Nick was twenty-two and died just nine weeks prior, he was denied treatment by her Insurance Company. There was Linda Ventura of Kings Park, also known as Thomas’ mom. Thomas was a popular athlete who won MVP for his Varsity Lacrosse team while only a freshman. Thomas died two years back right before his 22nd birthday, he was denied proper medical treatment many times by his mother’s Insurance carrier. There was Tom Goris, 31, an articulate college graduate who was denied treatment over and over again for the policy he paid for through his corporate job. Tom is one of the lucky ones, he is clean and sober for over fourth months. Tom said during a moment of desperation he dropped to his knees and asked God why it was easier for him to get the drugs than to get treatment. There was Avi, a well-dressed attorney at law. His took a shotgun to his head and committed suicide two years back because he could not get the help he needed, he was denied treatment by his father’s Insurance Company.
All of us in the Movement want to know why Insurance Companies are allowed to pursue this discriminatory practice. A Columbia University Professor joined us in Albany, he specializies in Insurance Company appeals. He said fifty-two percent of the time Insurance companies reverse their decisions after an appeal. Fifty-two percent of the time, the Insurance Companies admit they were wrong. That has proven far too late for too many Long Island families.
Ventura brought her son’s ashes in a small non-descript container. During the late-day press conference she held up Thomas’s ashes and said ‘is this what they meant by failing at out-patient first’? It was a powerful moment that was not lost on anyone, an eerie silence gripped the room for a brief moment and then the mothers of those lost sobbed quietly. So we wait for other lawmakers to sign those bills. We all wait while beautiful young lives are lost quietly in every community on tree-lined streets in the backdrop of their well-performing school districts and award-winning beaches. The casualties continue to mount and there is no end in sight for this war.