Thursday’s column: ‘Amazing people’ aid man with cancer
David Kilmer (center front) with his wife Susan (right) and daughter Julia (left) surrounded by his friends in the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club who are raising money to help cover his bone-marrow transplant. The Club was meeting at The Cornerstone restaurant to kick-off the fundraising campaign for Kilmer. | Photo by Don Petersen
Some years ago here in the valley, Roanoke chiropractor David Kilmer had a job collecting and preparing transplant organs as part of a Virginia organ-donation network.
Now Kilmer, who’s 60 and lives with his wife and daughter in Botetourt County, is the one who needs the transplant.
Next week, after four years of battling blood cancers that have left him transfusion dependent and with no other options, he’ll travel to Arizona for a bone-marrow transplant.
That treatment will take most of six months and more than $500,000 — much of which won’t be covered by insurance. So, many people here in this region are rallying around Kilmer and his family with prayers of support and donations of money.
“You learn all kinds of things in struggles like this that you wouldn’t otherwise learn,” Kilmer told me in a conversation this week. “One of them is, people are really amazing. They come out of the woodwork to help you.”
READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.
November 8, 2012 - 8:54 AM
So this is what we do when we get really sick in this country. We pass the hat. Anyone else see the underlying problem here?
Thanks for this story, Dan.
Yes, old blue. I’d say we have third world healthcare but that’s probably unfair to the third world. Health care in this country is a joke, and until we fix it we will be decidedly second rate.
Hey you libs,
Sooo, is obumee’s “affordable” care act gonna cover all folks who need bone marrow transplants such as needed by David Kilmer?
That’s a serious question. Do any of you libs have a serious answer? I’m SURE you’ll find that clearly spelled out for you somewhere in the 2200 page aca document….probably hidden in the area of the document which describes the Ruling Committee’s political appointees’ rights and responsibilities…
Dan, in all seriousness, could we please have a troll/idiot free thread once in a while? Just for the sake of having a real and decent conversation, could we? Please?
That is a great point old blue! It is sad what sick people have to do.
But it does warm my heart to see that people do still care and are still willing to help someone out.
Lol. It even begs. I knew it.
hey sandi, my question was a serious question. your response was like a deer caught in head lights.
i suspect that old blue, and kristen, and you believe that when obumee’s aca is fully implemented, all bone-marrow transplants will be provided by the gov’mint. ha!
“Sandi Saunders says:
Dan, in all seriousness, could we please have a troll/idiot free thread once in a while? Just for the sake of having a real and decent conversation, could we? Please?
Posted on November 8th, 2012″
Sandi, that’s EXACTLY why I no longer participate. I checked in here yesterday and today because I was curious to read some post-election comments. (Miss Suzie’s ‘exit speech’ was a hoot! She’ll be back. You can take that to the bank.) Other than that, I’ve only popped in one other day to read some posts and found the same old-same old juvenile, name-calling ‘arguments’. I, myself, for a time, had gotten caught up in it, especially where Miss Suzie was concerned, and I finally realized/decided that I no longer wanted to cultivate that ugly part of myself. I’m better than the worst part of me (we all are), and frankly, at my age, with my limited time left on this Earth, my energy is much better spent on positive activities.
You kids have fun and play nice!
~~~~~~~~
On another note, regarding the low comment count on Mr. Jurkevich’s last essay: Perhaps if he didn’t come across as a bit of a pompous ass at times, he’d get more response.
13 Suns, welcome back!
Frank, until you learn to post like an adult, no one’s taking you seriously.
Frank, no. What I think is that health care is so expensive in this country that no one can really afford it. When someone can fly half way around the world, have elective surgery in a good hospital, rehab and fly back for less than he would pay to have the surgery done in the U.S., that’s a problem.
@13 Suns – I hope you’ll think about returning! Consider this: you do not have to engage in the BS here. There are a good number of us who do not…we simply weigh in here or there on certain issues and/or certain threads. Everyone has to have a throw down when they first arrive (I did as well) but then you can choose to disengage…but still remain involved. And Hi!
Good to hear from you again 13 Suns! Don’t leave us again.
Frank…
Id like others here to occasionally
try to respond to your offerings..
even if its just to verbally swiftly decapitate you.
But until you can properly spell the presidents name I for
one will not be responding to your posts in any fashion.
The folks who do that are juvenile in about every aspect.
ok joe, here goes…
whew!…almost there…ahhh, obama! there.
now, joe, will obama’s aca cover all persons needing the type of bone marrow transplant that David Kilmer requires?
Just for you, Frank.
http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@editorial/documents/document/acspc-026864.pdf
Make sure you scroll down and read page 9, Frank.
hey debbie, not for nuthin’,
but i went to your “page 9″, and there’s nothing. period. about bone-marrow transplants. all that’s there is, literally, “blah, blah, blah, and so forth. at least today’s commercial policies will describe what’s covered, and not covered, by the policy.
Now, I’m serious about this issue. Can you, or any other lib, point me to ANYWHERE in the 2200 plus page aca document which indicates that folks facing bone-marrow transplants such as David Kilmer will have coverage?
I’ll save you the time. it’s not in there.
oops.
Frank, while I didn’t find anything specifically about bone marrow transplants, I did find that there will no longer be lifetime caps on benefits. It’s very easy for cancer treatments to exceed a million dollars. When that amount is reached most insurance companies quit paying, that will not happen now.
Do you think that cancer treatments will no longer be covered, or are you just concerned about bone marrow transplants specifically?
good question, debbie.
With full implementation of obama’s aca, I don’t believe we will be seeing the last of community fund-raisers for medical purposes. Not everyone will be insured, and not all insured will have coverage for all things.
Look at old blue’s and kristen’s posts at the beginning of the thread, and you will see what I was referring to, initially.
You know what, frankieboy, I have family in Europe and when they hear iof these hideous fundraisers Americans are reduced to produce to keep their sick children alive, they assume we’re a nation of savages.
#7 Oh good god, the guy who advocated euthanizing a poster is back with the same old crap.
Any more predictions about how the Rethugs will romp in this election, mattie?
#22 My cousin in Paris is absolutely appalled by it, Kristen, and he was born and raised in the U.S.
Oh, Granddad’s mythical cousin.
Sandi, that’s EXACTLY why I no longer participate. I checked in here yesterday and today because I was curious to read some post-election comments. (Miss Suzie’s ‘exit speech’ was a hoot! She’ll be back. You can take that to the bank.) Other than that, I’ve only popped in one other day to read some posts and found the same old-same old juvenile, name-calling ‘arguments’. I, myself, for a time, had gotten caught up in it, especially where Miss Suzie was concerned, and I finally realized/decided that I no longer wanted to cultivate that ugly part of myself. I’m better than the worst part of me (we all are), and frankly, at my age, with my limited time left on this Earth, my energy is much better spent on positive activities.
You kids have fun and play nice!
I hadn’t been here for ten days, Grandma. So it must have been your leftwing buds trolling it up. Honest to God, what is with the leftwing obsession for Suziegirl?
Frank, are you seriously that uninformed? The ACA is not “coverage”, it is reforms to health insurance, there is no ‘this is covered and this is not’. The reform removes the “lifetime caps” that caused people to max out their coverage.
See Page 5.
13 Suns, I have missed you! And yes, I know playing “whack a RW mole” is not for everyone. They have crippled if not ruined virtually every discussion ever attempted here and it does get old. Just think of them as drunk uncles, which is how they come across, and know they cannot help it. We are here to talk with our friends and favorite columnist, they are here because they have no friends (among other things they lack).
Goodnight.
hey kristie girl,
soo, you think after obama-care is fully implemented, there won’t be community fund-raisers for health care purposes? Why do you believe that?Are you really that naive, or just pathetically stupid?
Do you REALLY believe that? Seriously? In otherwords, all things people need will be provided….like at the “snap” of the fingers? Do you REALLY think that David Kilmer, and all others like him, will get their medical needs addressed by obama-care?
Do you think there is, or is not, a review board at the top of obama-care, which will in effect determine what things get covered, and what things don’t?
sandi, yes, you are correct. the coverage gets supplied commercially. there will be mandated areas of coverage governed by obama-care.
sandi, will obama-care eliminate the need for community health care fund-raisers for non-covered health care needs?
In other words, does kristen’s post at 8:12 this morning still stand after obuma-care gets implemented?
Frank convincing everyone he has no clue what Obamacare (or obmucare) is actually about: Do you think there is, or is not, a review board at the top of obama-care, which will in effect determine what things get covered, and what things don’t?
Hi 13 Suns!
The only obsession I see is Suz’s with this blog.
We have no obsession …that is unless obsession =
total annoyance.
Perhaps we can have a fund raiser to help get her on her way
to Benghazi to sniff out the truth.
Frank, you remain insulting, irritating, and wrong. Kristen has no post at 8:12, and she said nothing about the ACA “Obamacare” meaning the end to costly surgery or insurance covering everything under the sun. You, like Suzie and other right wingers, just make things up and pretend an intelligence and credibility you lack. Your jig is up.
hey radmacher,
please tell us, definitively, whether insurance companies will offer full coverage for the type of condition David Kilmer has.
please tell us how decisions will be made regarding what features health insurance plans must provide.
finally, you are right sandi.
kristen’s post was actually at 10:12 a.m., 3rd one from the top. …further proof that your pea-brain has no use for deductive reasoning.
now, please answer the question about whether kristen’s post (above, 3rd from the top) will still apply in our country after obama’s aca is implemented, i.e., will some citizens still have medical needs for which they have no means to pay?
Speaking of pea sized brains Frank, Kristen’s post has nothing to do with the ACA. You have no “reasoning” in you, “deductive” or otherwise.
The ACA (Affordable Care Act) did NOT take over health care, it did not even take over the damn insurance prison guards, it just gave us a few breaks and righted a few wrongs along with getting more people covered. Get a grip man, you sound like a lunatic….
#25 Sorry, suze, Dan and Mark have both seen videos of my cuz. Why do you have to lie all the time?
Do yourself a favor, frankieboy, and stick a sock in it until you actually have something to say.
“Oh good god, the guy who advocated euthanizing a poster is back with the same old crap.” -Yep, but only if fools like yourself accept the notion that the poster in question is, actually…a dog. Lol. Ohh, gDUD. What a tool.
“Any more predictions about how the Rethugs will romp in this election, mattie?”
Hey gDUD, please go find a single post in which I predict a Republican “romp” in the election. In fact, please go find a single post in which I predict with certainty a Republican victory in the election (crickets). Stop telling lies. What’s funny, gDUD, is that I remember YOU predicting a Romney victory! You can’t make this stuff up!
I can see why you were not a very good reporter, gDUD. But keep on firing blanks and biting ankles.
#39 “Yep, but only if fools like yourself accept the notion that the poster in question is, actually…a dog. Lol.”
Now that was about as weak a response as possible. Just admit that you’re an idiot and were wrong. It’ll be much easier than making up crap liker this. Even some of the right-wingers were castigating you for the euthanization comment. Others were completely appalled by your dog comments. Your vileness was turning everybody off.
I made exactly one comment saying that I THOUGHT Romney might win. Unlike the bonehead right wingers GUARANTEEING a landslide. And that was weeks before Obama started re-establishing himself. At the time I said it, Romney probably would have won had the election taken place then. So at the time I was without question right.
Anyway, sorry to see that you and bosom buddy wankie have returned just as weak and unoriginal as ever. Sad.
Considering your stature lower case matt, it isn’t the “ankles” getting bit. You flatter yourself.
Hey Frank,
Notice how not one of the libs has been able to provide an answer to your very simple question. Not one! Due to their inability to provide an answer, they are having to resort to telling you to shut up (Kristen), and calling you names (Sandi). You can almost see their heads spinning away! It’s fun to watch.
Frank@4
It is a legitimate question. I don’t know the answer but since the the affordable care acts requires people to have insurance it follows to reason that the answer most likely would be that it depends on the insurance the individual purchased.
For some reason, you conservatives think this is a single payer one size fits all solution. It’s not, it’s a market place in which folks are gonna to continue to have to make decisions about insurance products.
Here’s the other thing I don’t get. For the first time ever, people who choose not to purchase insurance are going to have to. One of my completely dead beat friends just had triple bypass surgery. You paid for it, I paid for it but the one person who did not pay for it was the recipient of the surgery. The dude only works occasionaly and has no tangible assets. Free ride for him, increased rates for us.
Aren’t you the least bit satisfied that he is gonna have to fork up at least a tax penalty for being such a dead beat? I’m glad about that.
“Here’s the other thing I don’t get. For the first time ever, people who choose not to purchase insurance are going to have to. One of my completely dead beat friends just had triple bypass surgery. You paid for it, I paid for it but the one person who did not pay for it was the recipient of the surgery. The dude only works occasionaly and has no tangible assets. Free ride for him, increased rates for us.”
Mike Scott,
I think what’s going on here is that Frank staunchly believes in the constitutional right of every American to shift the cost of their healthcare onto insurance-paying Americans, if and when they so desire. At least, that appears to be the most logical explanation here.
Because, uh, uh (wait for it) . . . .IF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CAN FORCE YOU TO BUY HEALTH INSURANCE, THEY CAN PASS A LAW FORCING YOU TO EAT SPINACH!!!!!!!!!!!!
And THAT is unAmerican!
(It is OK though, if a state government forces you to buy health insurance, or auto insurance, or makes you eat spinach or whatever)
Hey DUD,
Like I said, my comment was meant to be absurd. It was based on the false premise that Sandi is a dog (no matter how many similarities exist between the two). It was not meant to be taken literally, and you know that, DUD. You just need something to cry about, so you are making a big deal out of nothing. It’s what you do, DUD. Which is why you are always firing blanks…
“I made exactly one comment saying that I THOUGHT Romney might win.”
Exactly, DUD. Yet, you make up LIES trying to hold me accountable for predicting a Romney “romp”…which is something I never did! Jeez, what a freakin’ moron. A total failure. You can’t make this stuff up!
Seriously lower case matt, stop helping your dad out, your help is not helping. His “question” was answered in #27 and he just kept on braying as if it was some hard to find query. Sad that you both operate that way.
#46 Right, mattie.
You see, mattie, whether or not you really meant that Sandi should be euthanized, your canine and canine-related comments were beyond the pale. You cross a line and then it doesn’t matter. Serious or not, your comments were despicable. Period.
matt or Frank,
So it turns out the answer to the question Frank posed is that what’s covered is still a function of your health insurance:
http://www.healthcare.gov/using-insurance/understanding/services/index.html#Whatservicesarecoveredundermyinsurancepolicy
So, Frank, are you in the market for health insurance? It looks to me that if you interested in a plan that covers bone marrow transplants, you are gonna have to do some shopping and pay a little more than a general health care plan. Course anytime there’s a market, it’s up to buyer to make the decisions.
Hey DUD,
I noticed you completely left out any mention of your earlier LIES regarding my prediction of a Romney “romp.” Lol. Your apology for your lies and false accusations is accepted.
As usual, IT doesn’t know what it is talking about (in more ways than one). You didn’t answer squat in post 27. The only comment that even comes close to a rational and coherent answer would be Mike Scott’s. But please, keep showing off good ol’ Bedford’s finest. You do every owner of a home on wheels proud.
#50 I just don’t have tome to searching the archives for your comment, mattie.
You made my point, Mike Scott, thank you.
Many liberal folks appear to think bone-marrow transplants will be free, just like condoms are….for people who have insurance.
And, yes, I’m happy that all folks not on Medicaid or Medicare will be required to “contribute” to paying for their insurance, or have it provided by their employer.
However, regardless of what any study has indicated, we have no idea about how the mis-named aca will be paid for. Ooops, yes we do.
hey dano, why do you continue to be so stupid with your bizarre point…and I paraphrase… that “being forced to buy health insurance is the same as being forced to buy car insurance”?
The aca forces all people who BREATH to buy health insurance,or pay the tax.
States force all people who CHOOSE TO DRIVE to buy auto insurance, or pay a fee.
…as you well know.
“And, yes, I’m happy that all folks not on Medicaid or Medicare will be required to “contribute” to paying for their insurance, or have it provided by their employer.
However, regardless of what any study has indicated, we have no idea about how the mis-named aca will be paid for. Ooops, yes we do.”
Frank is writing about this as if if was some sorrt of revolutionary act, first-in-the-world stuff.
It’s not. We’re the ONLY industrialized nation that DOESN’T have universal coverage. It didn’t mean “death” to those nations and itg’s not going to kill us either.
So pammie’s selling her slurpee franchise. Big deal. Businesses get sold every day.
Lower case matt, it is hard to imagine such a losing streak for someone who claims to be educated…until I remember your friend Suzie and your dad Frank.
I did answer his question, pretty much the same way Mike Scott did and I also referred him to the page in the link that explained that.
Your hate is your stutter.
Frank, you chose your ignorance about the ACA and want to blame it on liberals. We can explain it to you, we cannot understand it for you, thankfully our brain does not exclude relevant information as yours does.
Ohhh gaseous Sandi, as usual, you simply barked at the door. Bark a little louder so ol’ Cletus will let you out…
A wonderful column about a brave man and his amazing friends. Best of luck, Mr. Kilmer.
My God, people, give it a rest.