Uninsured And Sick 23 Year Old Begged For His Life

Freddie Effinger began feeling what he called a "bizarre pain" in his upper thigh during the summer of 2007, only prior to his third year at the University of Alabama School of Law. After a scan, his doctors told him it was probably some type of mass, not anything serious, and that they would remove it surgically in September.

Effinger, who was 23 at the time, didn't have insurance. His parents' policy dropped him after college, and he had figured he could coast through three years of law school and land a job with benefits prior to undergoing any catastrophic illness or injury. ("Superman Complex," he calls it.) The operation to remove the mass would just cost him roughly $1,200.

But when they operated, Effinger's doctors found something more serious.

"The tumor was the same size as my hand," Effinger told the Huffington Post. "And directly underneath that tumor was another tumor, and further down my leg was another tumor."

The next month, an oncologist told Effinger he had advanced stage lymphoma. The oncologist told him that his chemotherapy could cost tens of thousands of dollars for each session, and that 12 sessions would be needed. Effinger panicked.

"My mom's a schoolteacher and my dad's a juvenile detention officer," Effinger said. "They're good people, but that's not going to happen."

Effinger scrambled for insurance. He was told that the school's health plan for students wouldn't have sufficiently covered chemotherapy treatment at the nearby University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. He had no luck on the private insurance market outside the university.

"After making a couple calls explaining the situation, it was pretty much discussions of blackout periods and 'We wouldn't be able to do it,'" he said. "And it was frustrating and frightening."

Meanwhile, his leg hurt more and more. He was scared the cancer would spread.

Staff at the hospital, St. Vincent's East in Birmingham, Alabama, came up with a solution. "I spoke to someone at the hospital and they mentioned there's a certain number of patients a year they grant charity to," he said. He was qualified for the reason that he had zero income. He was indigent.

"They called me later that day and told me they would grant me 100 percent charity. I broke down in tears. Somebody told me they were going to let me live. It was an amazing feeling."

Effinger completed chemo and tied the knot in July of 2008. He even managed to complete law school on time and score a job with an employment law firm in Birmingham.

But Effinger is still on the hook for approximately $9,000 for other parts of his treatment. (That's in addition to $100,000 in student loan debt, but, he said, "at least the student loan people are being cool" by comparison; debt collectors harassed him over the medical bills.) His credit is ruined.

And the warm, fuzzy feeling Effinger got from the kindness at the hospital was alleviated by the realization that he had to beg to survive, that he owed his life to charity, and had added significantly to his debt all the same. He has become an advocate for health insurance reform, going door to door for Organizing for America.

"I'm a pretty humble guy, but it's really demoralizing to have to beg a hospital for your life, to be to be able to be treated for this thing you just found out that you had," he said. "I don't just have a right to be healthy? I have to beg for it? I have to show that I am poor? It's frustrating. It's embarrassing. It's really unacceptable."