DEATH RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE SYSTEM

When forklift operator Debra Johnson has important papers to look at,
she sits on her clean, made bed and spreads it all out.

One day, she did her dying ex-husband a favor and she sat down with
his papers. She arranged them by date and that's when something dawned
on her. The timing was all wrong.

Here's how it went: 1. He got cancer. 2. He was given a drug test at
work. 3. The test reportedly came back positive for marijuana. 4. He
got a letter from human resources with some family leave forms to fill
out. He was told to meet with human resources "upon your release to
full work" by a doctor. 5. Two days later, he was fired for failing
the drug test.

Why was human resources talking about release to work before he was
fired, two weeks after the positive drug test? And was it really
necessary to fire a dying man for alleged use of marijuana? The move
had cut off health insurance so that he could no longer afford
morphine for the pain and other treatments, according to family members.

Johnson picked up a phone and called her ex.

"Derryle," she said, "This isn't right. We can do something about
this." She wanted to figure it all out, to fight, and to complain. But
Derryle Allen was never a complainer.

"No, when I get better," he said.

Derryle Allen of Racine didn't get better. He died of esophageal
cancer at age 47 on July 16 at All Saints' St. Mary's Medical Center.
Now, his brothers, his mother, and his ex-wife are all pretty angry
with Allen's employer, Ocean Spray Cranberries of Kenosha.

The family admits Derryle Allen had problems with drugs, though
they're sure he'd rejected them forever in the last few years. Who
knows? Maybe he smoked pot to get away from the pain.

But whether Derryle Allen was actually smoking is not the point.
There's a larger point.

The point is our national health insurance system is like a train
wreck. It's big. It's spectacular. It's bad.

Family members remember Derryle Allen as a kind-hearted, easy-going
person, a soft-spoken man who worked too many hours, who loved to play
the trumpet. Derryle Allen and his identical twin brother, Gerryle,
went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston together. They came
back with a shared passion for jazz.

Derryle Allen and his ex-wife, Debra, had two children together,
Derryle II, 15, and Danielle, 13. Derryle Allen paid all his child
support until he was terminated, Johnson said. The divorce was amicable.

The family is upset with Ocean Spray.

"How can you do that to somebody this ill?" Johnson asks
rhetorically.

"He worked sick for a while while he was losing weight. I saw the
shape that he was in when he was trying to make it to work and stuff,"
said Gerryle Allen. "I think they should have kept him on his
insurance. They should have kept his job open. I don't think he got a
fair shake."

When asked about Derryle Allen, Ocean Spray spokesman Chris Phillips
said he couldn't talk about an employee due to privacy rules. He said
his heart goes out to the family.

"We're certainly sympathetic with the loss of their family member.
They're welcome to contact Ocean Spray and as far as I'm aware they
haven't done that," he said.

You've heard of how a person can't see the forest for the trees. The
family is in agony over this. They see trees. I'll let the family
handle the trees - their feelings about Ocean Spray detailed above -
while I'll talk about the forest. The forest, in this case, is a
health care system that plays a weird gotcha game. Did you break a
rule? Gotcha. No more morphine for you.

In the lives of people I know, I see too many health decisions made
seemingly to satisfy employers and insurance companies at the expense
of patients. I see people working hard and getting a raw deal on
health care, while I see people who are unemployed getting
government-paid treatment and services.

Derryle Allen, by the way, was eventually awarded free government
health insurance, but it came too late.

In the richest country in the world, there has got to be a better way.
There must be a way to maintain free-market pressure on the system to
keep costs low, without needlessly hurting people so often and to such
a sweeping extent.

We deserve better.