As JoAnn Tuck sees it, working hard all her life has come back to bite her.
Her lawyer sees Tuck’s predicament as the result of a complicated scenario butting heads with a not-so-agile computer system.
The computer system in question is the Colorado Benefits Management System, the $200 million benefits system that debuted Sept. 1.
Since then, the CBMS has been blamed for thousands of people not getting food stamps, medical care and other benefits. And the state has had to defend it in court twice.
About 10 years ago, the 71-year-old Flagler woman was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer that almost always kills.
But dying wasn’t part of Tuck’s plan. She had a diabetic husband to care for, a grandson to raise, things to do.
So with the help of 37 radiation treatments, she did the impossible – beat the cancer.
To keep it from coming back, her doctor put her on an anti-cancer drug. And to pay for it, the state put her on Medicaid.
The arrangement worked well for about nine years.
Then, last fall, Tuck was told she didn’t qualify for Medicaid – in fact, the state said, she never had and shouldn’t have been getting it all those years.
“They cut me off because I make too much money,” she said. “When I got the notice, I had two pills left.”
Three months’ worth of pills cost $85. To a couple making house payments, car payments and trying to buy groceries on $1,641 a month, it might as well have been $8,500.
“I’m really ticked,” she said.
Ticked because she worked all her life, as a court clerk, a bank teller. She also ran a sewing shop. Her husband, a World War II veteran, worked too, as a farmer and Colorado State Patrol trooper, until illness forced him to quit.
“I can’t get on disability because I can still give myself a bath. I’m trying to float my own boat out here, and I’m getting punished for it,” Tuck said.
“I can’t get new insurance. I have a pre-existing condition. What … am I supposed to do?”
What she did was appeal, and appeal again. And then she got a lawyer.
Linda Olson of Colorado Legal Services says she thinks Tuck was booted from Medicaid because of cost-of-living increases in Tuck and her husband’s Social Security and other income. But a federal law is supposed to protect Medicaid recipients from losing the benefit for that reason.
It’s an obscure law, and one the CBMS apparently isn’t aware of.
“Her case is more complicated than average. And CBMS is not set up to identify her situation,” Olson said.
State officials say the CBMS is now processing 95 percent of cases. But they concede that more complicated cases are still a problem.
Tuck is opinionated and feisty, not averse to tangling with a caseworker or even a massive computer network. But Olson worries about those who don’t have Tuck’s fiery nature or education.
Tuck’s appeal is pending. In the meantime, “my oncologist has come to my rescue,” Tuck said.
Like many drugmakers, Merck & Co. which manufactures the medication Tuck needs, has a program to help buy lifesaving drugs for patients without insurance or any way to pay for them.
Tuck’s doctor got her on the program for 15 months. “I’ve got about 12 months left,” she said.
Staff writer Karen Augé can be reached at 303-8201-733 or kauge@denverpost.com.
