Health insurance won’t pay for life-saving heart transplant
Thirty-three year old Sean Semon says he needs a heart transplant to survive, but his health insurance won’t pay for the surgery.
Semon has been dealing with a debilitating heart condition since 2005. According to his doctors in Las Vegas, he has cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure, conditions that have landed him in the hospital five times this year alone.
“My heart is only pumping 20% of the needed blood supply” says Semon.
His condition has worsened. He has to be on oxygen constantly, and his prognosis isn’t good without a heart transplant. But that life-saving operation isn’t an option for Semon because his insurance plan under Aetna won’t cover the $700,000 surgery.
He’s now living with family in Utah so he can be treated at Intermountain Medical Center. IMC’s spokesman says Semon is not on a transplant list there, and with just one evaluation, Utah doctors have not diagnosed him with needing a transplant.
Semon says he’s determined to beat this setback. He hopes he can raise enough money to get the heart he will need before it’s too late.
“If everybody donated one dollar, I would have more than enough money to save my life” says Semon.
Semon’s next appointment at IMC’s Heart and Lung Center is a week from Tuesday, and without insurance coverage, he will need 170-thousand dollars up front just to get on the transplant list.
Stay with ABC 4 as we follow this story and let you know what happens.
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I understand there are contracts that must be followed, but isn’t there some kind of clause that says if you life depends on it they must cover the costs? We don’t need HC reform to fix problems like this. We just need the public to show a significant outcry so the insurance industry will get rid of the pre existing conditions clause. We also need more competition, not from the government, so costs will go down. I pray for him and I pray for his family.
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