Dana Christensen

Consumer Watchdog released this video about Trump’s plan and one patient, Dana Christensen, who faced $450,000 in medical bills despite being insured by a junk “association health plan”:

When insurance giant Cigna denied Hilda Sarkisyan's 17-year-old daughter Nataline a life-saving liver transplant, HIlda left the bedside and went to the streets. She rounded up alliies including the CNA and Consumer Watchdog, and led protests to Cigna's doorstep. She went from mother to tiger--and eventually won a reversal from Cigna, though it was by then too late for Nataline, who succumbed to her leukemia. Now  morphed into public advocate, Sarkisyan is the force behind Nataline's Law, which would lift a federal law that prevents patients who have employer coverage from holding insurance companies accountable. Dana Christensen, who with her husband Doug bought individual insurance that they thought was comprehensive, ended up with nearly half a million dollars in medical debt after Doug succumbed to bone cancer. The insurance was junk--so bad that they were turned away from their hospital while he writhed in pain. She turned grief into determination, and was the key force in stopping Congress from making the same kind of junk insurance a national norm. We all celebrated what an individual, and a small but determined band of take-no-prisoners advocates, can accomplish in the face of corporate greed and deception. It's the long odds that make victory so satisfying.

Dana Christensen and Hilda Sarkisyan will be welcomed into the Hall of Farme for their heroic efforts to raise awareness about health insurance company abuses.

Dana Christensen of California was left with $450,000 in medical bills when her husband Doug died of bone cancer, and Mega refused to pay in spite of the special chemotherapy coverage they had purchased just in case Doug’s cancer returned.