Damian Musello has allowed us to share the testimony he gave yesterday on behalf of his wife Ellen to support this bill. Please take a minute to read this. It is very personal and extremely moving. September 16, 2013 The Honorable James Welch, Senate Chair The Honorable Steven Walsh, House Chair The Joint Committee for Health Care Financing The Massachusetts State House Boston, MA 02133 RE: House Bill 1050 Dear Chairman Welch, Chairman Walsh and Committee Members: My name is Damian Musello and I am here to speak in support of House Bill 1050. I am here speaking for my wife, Ellen Kelliher, who died on July 1 of this year of breast cancer at the age 58. Before she died Ellen, working with colleagues here today, drafted the bill before the committee. A few words about Ellen. In the mid-eighties she was a member and shop steward for Local 26, at that time the Hotel Workers Union. With the Union she broke the then established barrier to women working as wait staff in high-end hotel restaurants and became the first woman to work the Park Plaza’s Fox and Hounds. While working the Fox and Hounds she attended the New England School of Law and received her JD in 1986 while earning a New England Scholar Award and an American Jurisprudence Award. She went on to build a successful law practice which she ran until her cancer forced her to retire in 2010. When you hear arguments against House 1050, you will hear from the opponents that additional testing with ultrasound will lead to too many, and this is the key phrase, “false positives” which will result in increased medical costs and unnecessary emotional trauma for the patients receiving additional testing. Ellen and I believe that she was the victim, and this is a phrase I want you to think of whenever you hear, “false positive”, Ellen was the victim of the more costly and more dangerous, “false negative.’ That is, an inconclusive mammogram that does not detect tumors in some women’s breasts because of the density of their breast tissue. We are certain that Ellen was the victim of a false negative because oncologist at three hospitals: Brigham and Women’s, Beth Israel and Emerson Hospital (affiliated with MGH) told us that Ellen’s tumor was large and had been there for years, which of course means that all her previous mammograms, and the radiologists reading them, had missed this tumor. Opponents of the bill will refer to some undetermined costs of “false positives.” I have here beside me a very real manifestation of a “false negative.” These are all of the “Explanation of Benefits” covering the years of Ellen’s cancer from 2009 to 2013. They cover 500 pages. Reading these Reports detail the painful and enormous cost of Ellen’s disease, the operations, the CAT scans, the MRI’s the blood draws, the chemotherapies, the endless doctor visits and clinical hours and the pain medication--for the last three years of her life Ellen fought a unceasing battle against pain. The very real costs for Ellen’s false negative, billed by oncologists, radiologists, palliative care providers, hospitals, drug companies and on and on from 2009 to 2013 were: • Total Costs Billed: $930,000 • Amount insurance company paid: $370,000 • Our co-pays: $ 12,000 The price of a breast ultrasound in Massachusetts ranges from $300 to as much as $1800. If you take a middle cost of $1000, which I believe is high, Ellen’s one false negative mammogram would pay for between 370-930 preemptive, life-saving, ultrasounds. The opponents of House Bill 1050 will also speak of the unnecessary emotional stress that “false positives” will visit upon the women receiving them. I would like to speak for a moment about the emotional costs of Ellen’s false negative. When Ellen was healthy, she used to, for the fun of it, swim the length of Walden Pond, in Concord, Ma. Walden Pond is one-half mile long so the round trip is a mile and took Ellen about 45 minutes of steady swimming. She would come back not the least tired. At five foot nine and 160 pounds she was fit and strong. On June 24th of this year, my daughter Rita, Ellen and I took a trip to Walden Pond. Because Ellen was now 135 pounds and very weak, we were able to use the handicap access road to the pond. Rita and I helped Ellen to a chair by the shore and then, later, into the water. It was a beautiful day. On the ride home I looked over and saw that Ellen was quietly crying. I took her hand. Perhaps this outing was too much for her fragile health—the next day, Tuesday, she was fine but by Saturday she was hospitalized. Scans showed that the tumor in her liver had rapidly advanced. She died on Monday, one week after our last outing as a family. When you hear the opponents of House Bill 1050 speak of the unnecessary emotional toll of “false positives” on women receiving additional testing, I would like you to think about the emotional toll of Ellen’s false negative. I can tell you that Rita, Ellen and I would have happily endured 1000 false positives to get back the life we had together before our peace of mind and the future we took for granted were both lost because her false negatives robbed her of the early warning that might have saved her life. I ask you to favorably report House Bill 1050 out of the Committee. Thank you, Damian Musello
Posted on: Wed, 18 Sep 2013 23:16:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015