Goanet: Can anyone in explain why this Dr. Joseph Manley [referenced in the Guardian article] who said he served in Vietnam, was ineligible for any Veterans Health Benefits? Or for either Medical (based on income) or Medicare (age) Health Benefits? To date, there is no cure (or reversal) for Huntington's Disease; all care is palliative with prescribed anti-psychotic drugs and tranquillizers. The blood test referenced in the Pilkington article is for genetic testing ( probabilities of HD ) based on presence of the HD gene. I. Nunes --- On Sun, 8/23/09, Carmen Miranda <carmitamira...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Carmen Miranda <carmitamira...@gmail.com> Subject: [Goanet] healthcare in US To: goanet@lists.goanet.org Date: Sunday, August 23, 2009, 1:58 AM In the furious debate gripping America over the future of its health system, one voice has been lost amid the shouting. It is that of a distinguished gynaecologist, aged 67, called Dr Joseph Manley. For 35 years Manley had a thriving health clinic in Kansas. He lived in the most affluent neighbourhood of Kansas City and treated himself to a new Porsche every year. But this is not a story about doctors' remuneration and their lavish lifestyles. In the late 1980s he began to have trouble with his own health. He had involuntary muscle movements and difficulty swallowing. Fellow doctors failed to diagnose him, some guessing wrongly that he had post-traumatic stress from having served in the airforce in Vietnam. Eventually his lack of motor control interfered with his work to the degree that he was forced to give up his practice. He fell instantly into a catch 22 that he had earlier seen entrap many of his own patients: no work, no health insurance <http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/healthinsurance>, no treatment. He remained uninsured and largely untreated for his progressively severe condition for the following 11 years. Blood tests that could have diagnosed him correctly were not done because he couldn't afford the $200. Having lost his practice, he lost his mansion on the hill and now lives in a one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs. His Porsches have made way for bangers. Many times this erstwhile pillar of the medical establishment had to go without food in order to pay for basic medicines. In 2000 Manley finally found the help he needed, at a clinic in Kansas City that acts as a rare safety net for uninsured people. He was swiftly diagnosed with Huntington's disease, a degenerative genetic illness, and now receives regular medical attention through the clinic.
