TOTALLY DEAF


and completely unable to comprehend.

I've lately exchanged a few emails with a happily repatriated Pittsburgher -- we'll call her BD -- who's been reading TWM and enjoying the Patriots' Super Bowl loss and otherwise trying to reacclimate herself to a city she loves. But a few days ago, after reading about rising waters and reassigning genders, she wrote again to ask if I could answer a simple, nagging question. I could not. And I doubt you can either. But her question is worth asking again, and her story, as maddening and infuriating as it is, needs to be told in more than just my inbox:

Could you clarify something for me?

Today's Post-Gazette states that the person rescued yesterday from a tunnel beneath the Convention Center, Rebecca Hare, was homeless and in the process of undergoing a sex change. So, let me understand this. Ms. Hare is apparently so destitute that she is compelled to live inside a maintenance tunnel, yet is able to cover an extensive, extended medical procedure costing, according to a University of Michigan website, between $30-$40K.

PLEASE, can you find out what kind of medical insurance Ms. Hare has?

I have just returned to Pittsburgh after a 30-year exile and pay over $1000 per month for COBRA coverage while I am searching for employment. Shortly after our arrival here, my husband lost his hearing entirely and was recommended as a cochlear implant candidate by one of the area's top specialists. His preapproval for the surgery was denied by our insurance carrier -- twice -- and we were firmly told that this was not a covered procedure. So my husband remains totally deaf and completely unable to communicate with anybody as he attempts to adjust to new experiences in a new state. (Trying to purchase a bottle of his favorite wine was a real eye opener for him.)

I was thinking if my family could get the same kind of insurance as Ms. Hare, it might cover his implant, or at least he would qualify for some reconstructive procedures, and I might be able to convince a surgical team to pop an implant in his head while they're fussing around with other parts of his body. It's certainly worth a try.

So, if you could find out more about such a medical insurance plan, I would be most grateful. Or maybe I could just wait until it's tabled on an upcoming UPMC Minute. (They really need to close-caption those things, you know.)

BD is right, of course: they should close-caption those things, if only so her husband and everyone else left in the dark or the silence (or both) by their friendly neighborhood health care providers might better understand how a minute can change their lives. And how want of a few dollars can destroy them.

Posted: Mon - February 11, 2008 at 02:05 PM          

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