Women With Lupus To Highlight Difficulties in U.S. Health System

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Women With Lupus To Highlight Difficulties in U.S. Health System

      The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday profiled Monique White, a Tennessee woman diagnosed with the immune system disorder Lupus, and her issues with access to health insurance, a case that "illustrates how arduous the American health care system can be, even for an educated person in a middle-class family." White had health insurance through her parents until she graduated from college and later obtained coverage through an employer. However, White had to leave her job after her lupus worsened, and she lost her health insurance.

White enrolled in TennCare, the Tennessee Medicaid managed care program, but later lost her coverage because of budget reductions to the program. According to the Journal, many U.S. residents find themselves "in a messy middle" between a "patchwork of public and private entities, paid for by another patchwork of public and private insurers." The U.S. health care system can "offer better health care than that offered by national health regimes" for some, but others "can get lost in the tangles," the Journal reports