KU law student Tracie Revis has had to battle Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer. But some of her worst experiences in the process have been in dealing with the health insurance system.

When Tracie Revis started her fight against cancer more than two years ago, she didn’t expect to take on a health care system ill-equipped to handle an uninsured 20-something.

After rounds of chemotherapy, radiation treatment and a stem cell transplant, it’s still one of the few battles Revis has yet to win.

In fall 2005, as a newly enrolled Kansas University law student, Revis was forced to withdraw from class after doctors discovered a large mass in her chest. On Christmas Day, the now 30-year-old Oklahoma native’s illness was diagnosed as Hodgkins lymphoma.

As a student, Revis didn’t have health insurance. So she fell back on Indian Health Service, federally funded care provided to Americans Indians. But Indian Health Service didn’t have the resources to cover her medical needs. She didn’t qualify for Medicaid, was told she had the “wrong type of cancer” to receive assistance from the Oklahoma Department of Human Services and heard from hospitals that they had already taken their quota of uninsured patients. Letters to senators and state representatives didn’t help, either.

The results were that Revis was denied care, had her treatment put on hold as her tumor grew and eventually took on more than $150,000 in medical debt to avoid compromising her health.

“I don’t have parents to cover my bills. I don’t have a lasting employer to cover my bills,” Revis said, “and the system doesn’t allow for someone of my age and my status to be covered.”

Uninsured in Kansas

Now in remission, with freshly grown black hair, sparkling blue eyes and an easy laugh, Revis could have been the poster child for National Cover the Uninsured Week. The campaign – a project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – ended Saturday.

The event has received little attention in the past. But this year, with recession in the air, a presidential race in full swing and gathering grass-roots support for universal health care, a series of events was conducted throughout northeast Kansas.

Among them were three presentations at the Kansas University Medical Center, made possible through a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Last Tuesday, Corrie Edwards, executive director of Kansas Health Consumer Coalition, stood before a lecture hall full of doctors and nurses in training.

She mapped out the landscape of Kansas’ uninsured. There are nearly 300,000 of them, or roughly 10 percent of the population. And, like Revis, almost half of the state’s uninsured are between the ages of 19 and 34.

Armed with recently published statistics from Families USA, Edwards said more than three working-age Kansans die each week because of a lack of health insurance.

The uninsured are likely to become more ill and die sooner than those with health insurance, she said.

“We all know it is unsustainable to continue down the path we are on. We can’t continue to do this,” Edwards said.

Fighting the system

Without a doubt, a lack of health insurance compromised her health, Revis said.

After the tumor was discovered in Revis’ chest in November 2005, she had to negotiate with Indian Health Service before a biopsy was performed. Then, it was finding an oncologist and coverage for chemotherapy. It was a hard task without proof of insurance to back her. Finally in March – more than three months after the mass was found – she began treatment.

By that time, 75 percent of the tumor that was cut out in December had grown back and her cancer had hit Stage III – it had spread into her lymph nodes on both sides of her diaphragm.

Eventually, Indian Health Service agreed to cover the biopsy and the first few rounds of chemotherapy.

Insurance through a job at the University of Oklahoma’s Health Sciences Center and Indian Health Service helped cover part of her treatment when her cancer relapsed and she underwent a stem cell transplant the following year. But she also had to pick up a substantial tab.

And by the end of last summer, after a 30-day stay in the hospital to recover from the transplant, Revis’ work had ended, and she was planning to return to KU.

Then came the call from her doctor that not all the cancer had left. Revis decided to push ahead with school – juggling radiation treatments at Lawrence Memorial Hospital with classes at KU. She wore a wig and informed her professors of her health.

This time around, she decided to forgo the bureaucratic dealings for fear it would delay care. So she took on the cost of radiation and follow-up treatment. To date, her medical bills range in the $150,000 to $200,000 zone. That’s on top of debt from student loans.

With a recent checkup that showed she was cancer-free, Revis is heading to Washington, D.C., this summer as a Native American Congressional Intern with the Morris K. Udall Foundation.

Among her areas of interest will be working on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act.

With bachelor’s and master’s degrees and her work on a law degree, Revis said she had the education and drive to fight the system.

“And, I still had to suffer, I still had to endure the constant fighting, the self-advocating, the waiting,” Revis said.