Way Too Many of my Fellow Riders, and friends, Have No Health Insurance

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Okay, let’s just all agree to agree on this. We all need medical care during our lifetimes. And, maybe we can agree on this too. Healthcare/medical care is pretty expensive. Expensive compared to the average person’s wage at least.

Maybe some disagree with one of the two above statements, but generally I think we can agree. The key is how to pay for our individual healthcare. Or maybe, the key is how to try to encourage our society to come to some sort of agreement on how to pay for the healthcare of those that don’t have the means to pay for it themselves. I’m not sure what the real issue is. All I know is that we, as a country, are wealthy enough that we “deserve”, and should demand, healthcare for all our citizens.

I’ve been thinking about this since I did rotator cuff surgery in February. Actually, since I tore up my shoulder at Cyclocross Nationals in Madison in January. Participating in the system, as many of you already might know, is a challenge. It is so unbelievable broken that even those working in the field don’t understand how the system works. I’m not sure anyone does.

Yesterday out riding, we had a problem. My friend, Ian, crashed and hit his face pretty hard. He has a history of seizures, but none of us saw him go down. We came back and he was laying on the edge of a gravel road, pretty much unconscious, blood pouring down his face and out of his nose. Little Jack, was already on the phone with 911, trying to explain to them where exactly we were. Bill was holding Ian’s head, trying to keep him still. I called Ian’s wife, Katlin, to see if she could give me some information on his condition. She got into her car and started driving out to where we were immediately.

Long story short, the ambulance arrived, they put Ian inside to get him out of the cold. Ian “came back” after about 15 minutes in the back of the ambulance. He had health insurance, he works at Rebound Physical Therapy, where I did PT on my shoulder, but it was going to cost him a “fortune” to take an ambulance ride to the hospital and do all the necessary tests. Something maybe like 2 to 4 months salary, depending on what they did to him once he showed up. He decided to deny care and get a ride with his wife. The ambulance guys said since Ian was aware, he could decline treatment. I wasn’t so good with the decision at the time. Ian ended up going to minor-med and getting his face stitched up. He decided to take the risk on the concussion and broken nose.

I was talking to Bill while riding and wondering what he would have done. He told me pretty much exactly what Ian did. I think that it is so wrong that we have to make financial decisions that may, and many times do, risk our lives and health. I’m not sure what the answer is, but it needs to be fixed. I don’t understand why no one wants to address the cost issue. No one can ever tell me what it is going to cost to do any test before they actually do the test. CAT scans, MRI’s, tests that cost a few thousand dollars, they have no idea how much.

My brother broke his wrist falling off a ladder a couple months ago. He didn’t go to the hospital. I finally got him to go get it x-rayed and then sent them off to Stacie in Louisville. She said he needed a CAT scan of his wrist. I called around Topeka and no answers on cost. I eventually got some quotes of between $1800 and $2200. I went onto the internet and found a place from California that scheduled them all over the country. It cost $395. He drove the 60 miles and went to a regular imaging place and it was done. The charge less than 20% of the higher cost in Topeka. I don’t understand it.

Catherine had really great insurance when she crashed in Madison at Nationals and punctured her lung. But when all was said and done, she owed nearly $8000 out of pocket because they said she used an out of network hospital. I thought if it was an emergency, your insurance paid for any immediate medical care? Guess not.

We’ve already decided as a society that we take care of really hurt people. It is a law that hospitals can’t turn down patients that need immediate medical attention. When I come upon someone hurt or really sick, I want to be able to call the proper authorities, an ambulance and have the person taken to the hospital and taken care of. I really don’t care if the person was a drug dealer who was shot selling crack, an old lady that slipped on the ice or a police officer that had a heart attack. Or Ian, who crashed on his bike and hit his face onto the ground. I want them taken care of. We are a society of people. All of us don’t necessarily approve of what many of the others do or how they choose to live their lives, but that being said, it is the society that we choose to live in. No one is forcing anyone to live here, so we need to put aside the “I don’t want to pay for the other people’s insurance” argument.

And it’s a law that we do take care of them. So, our society has agreed, by law, that these people get medical treatment. No matter if they can pay for it or not. So we pay for the treatment whether they have insurance or not. Society pays for the treatment. We all pay for the treatment. But, people like Ian can’t afford insurance that pays for anything but a disaster.

Ian is in a very high risk group, as his wife, Katlin is. He has had seizures since he was a teenager and she was just diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. They are both going to be turning 26 pretty soon, so have to buy their own insurance. Can you imagine how much that would be? Through no fault of their own, they are nearly uninsurable in today’s system. It’s bullshit. It’s wrong.

I heard a radio interview on NPR about a woman in Florida that was trying to get people down there to sign up for the Affordable Care Act, Obama Care. The NPR segment said that Florida was a state that would really benefit from the legislation. But they are having a hard time getting people to look at the information, let alone sign up. I heard interview after interview from people that said that it was horrible legislation and it was just going to cost everyone money, but then admitted that they no nothing about it, but were sure that it would not be any good for them, even thought they had no health insurance now.

Nearly everyone I talk to has some view about Obama Care. And I really haven’t met any one person that could tell me more than one or two things about it. I’ll be the first to admit that I know very little about it too. I know that you can get insurance without having to disclose pre-existing conditions, which is a very big deal. That would apply to my brother, whose wrist is still broken, Ian and Katlin. Other than that, I don’t know much.

I can’t tell you if the Affordable Health Act is going to be a great thing in the long run. I do know that our health care system is really screwed up currently and I’m willing to try just about anything different to see if it helps some. I wish we could all have a more open mind and put themselves into other people’s positions. When it comes down to it, our health is the most important part of life. If we are unhealthy, then the rest of life is an uphill battle.

Let all try to figure this out. At least keep an open mind and recognize that we have a big problem that needs to be addressed. This might not, and most likely won’t fix the whole problem, but in my opinion, something is better than nothing. If you want to check out the Affordable Care Act and it’s offerings, click here. If this post just gets one uninsured person to go out and explore the options of getting insurance, then it was a success.

We had to wait here over 15 minutes before an ambulance arrived. We complained about how long it took, but really? We are very fortunate to live in a country that has such good emergency services.

We had to wait here over 15 minutes before an ambulance arrived. We complained about how long it took, but really? We are very fortunate to live in a country that has such good emergency services.

Ian taking a rest until Katlin showed up.

Ian taking a rest until Katlin showed up.

Katlin showed up with some medicine.

Katlin showed up with some medicine.

Kansas aren't so inclined to look into the ACA either. This headline of the Topeka paper says that only 1855 people have signed up for it so far. That is out of an estimated 363,000 people that don't currently have health insurance now. That is about 0.5% of the unisured people here. Wow is all I can say.

Kansas aren’t so inclined to look into the ACA either. This headline of the Topeka paper says that only 1855 people have signed up for it so far. That is out of an estimated 363,000 people that don’t currently have health insurance now. That is about 0.5% of the unisured people here. Wow is all I can say.

Gaggioli Tells His Role in The Million Dollar Payday/Payoff for/by Lance

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I wrote a post over a year ago about how it had been bugging me for years about what exactly happened at the end of the Triple Crowne series race in Philidelphia in 1993. I knew for a fact that there was a ton of money that exchanged hands, but couldn’t quite put all the pieces together. The main reason was that a bunch of the guys that rode for Coor’s Light were good friends and they swore up and down that there wasn’t a deal. I guess they were worried more about insurance fraud, or something, than just saying no comment. I’m just going to attach the piece I wrote last year to the bottom of this post, it’s just easier than going over the whole thing again (sorry if you read it already).

Anyway, Roberto Gaggioli finally told his side. Roberto would have been the guy to beat, so maybe he demanded a higher fee. I really don’t have much to add. It wasn’t unusual to be making a deal in the sport of cycling back then. But when you are taking money from an insurance company, a whole lot of money, not just the race winnings, it gets more than a little shady, approaching criminal. I suppose the statute of limitations has expired on the whole deal, so that money is long gone. I guess Stephen Swart must have a bad memory or maybe just got flicked by Roberto on the split. He said it was 50K.

Cyclingnews did the whole piece, but the most interesting parts to me were – “Two laps from the end, I was in a breakaway with Lance, Bobby Julich and some Italian riders from the Mercatone team. When Lance made a sign, I turned away as if not to see that he had escaped. He broke away to win on his own.”

Below is my original post from October, 2012.

Finally, My Suspicions Confirmed! Triple Crown Fixed

I’ve been trying to put the pieces of this together for nearly 20 years and just by chance, I saw this article that finally confirmed what I already knew. It is about the Pro Championships in 1993 when Lance won a million dollars.

I was racing the Triple Crown of Cycling back in 1993 when Lance pocketed the $1,000,000 for winning The Thrift Drug Classic, The Tour of West Virgina and then Philadelphia (US Pro National Championships).

Lance won The Thrift Drug Classic, destroying most of us, by nearly lapping us on a long loop. Ron Kiefel, Coor’s Light, finished 3rd. In West Virginia, he rode away with Micheal Engleman, Coor’s Light, never to be seen again.

So, it came down to Philadelphia and the US Pro Championships. I don’t really remember much of the race until it got important. I remember, very clearly and vividly, how fast Lance rode up Manayunk Wall when he dropped us. I was at the front of the field taking the right, right, left approach to the hill. When I came around the left, Lance came by like he was on motorcycle. I didn’t even stand up to attempt to go with him. He was over the top before the rest of us were 2/3 the way up. It was a joke.

Lance bridged to a break of a couple Euros, plus I believe Roberto Gaggioli, again Coor’s Light. I’m not positive it was Gag, but pretty. Anyway, we ride around a lap a couple minutes down on the break and then, poof, the next minute Lance is riding by himself. And what was weirder, we were catching the remaining riders of the break and no one was chasing.

I was thinking, how weird is it that those guys just shut it down when there is so much money on the line. I think it was still $15000 for 2nd and $10,000 for third then. So, we caught the rest of the break and there was still a big lap and then the small laps at the finish. This is when I realized it was fixed. Coor’s Light put their riders at the front and were rotating “chasing”. But the deal is they weren’t chasing at all. That wasn’t the sign though. The sign was that Davis Phinney was rotating in the “chase”, even though 100% for sure they were going to be working for him if it came down to a sprint. I knew that they had been bought.

After the race I talked to a couple of the riders from Coor’s Light that I knew very well. I asked them what was the deal. They said that it was not fixed. I didn’t believe them and actually asked them again later after a few months past. Again, no.

These guys were/are pretty good friends, so I sort of believed them. I did understand that there was a lot at stake and that if it leaked out, then all hell was going to break loose.

A few years later, I was staying with Andy Bishop in Burlington Vermont. Andy is a friend who was riding for Motorola when Lance won. He was in the race. I asked him about the deal and he said that it got all screwed up. That originally, no one from the Motorola wanted to come over from Europe to race, so it was just a small team. But after Lance won Thrift Drug and then West Virginia, everyone wanted a share. He thought he was going to get a 6 figure split and when it all came out in the wash, he got only a fraction of that.

I realized at that point, there was a lot of money unaccounted for and that my observation was most likely right. I figured that Phil Anderson, Lance’s Motorola team mate, was going to get the money, probably have it deposited in the Isle of Man, then get cash and give it over to everyone they paid off. No way to trace it, all clean and tidy. But, I realized that I was never going to know.

That was until I saw this article that says that Stephen Swart, a New Zealand rider for the Coor’s Light Team in 1993, later for Motorola (admitted EPO use while riding for Motorola) did a sworn testimony, and in it he said that they(Coor’s Light) were paid $50,000 to not race.

Finally, I have the answer. This had be buggin’ me for a while. Funny how that is. It was just one of those things that didn’t add up.

Man, when it rains it pours, concerning cycling “scandals” recently. But, finally clarification of a question that I already knew the answer to. I guess that real secrets are hard to kept and that time has its way with them.

They even made a video tape of the miracle.


If you want to watch a little make believe bike racing from back in the day, feel free.