Yesterday we had the story out of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, of a woman who needed a transplant in order to live after undergoing numerous treatments, chemotherapy and such for cancer. The Social Security Administration called her up and solicited her son to be on Social Security disability aid. She accepted, and this put her put her over the income threshold, basically made her ineligible for any future medical treatment. The story was first reported by WFOR Eyeball News in Miami. This is what we said about the program yesterday.
RUSH ARCHIVE: Now, I imagine with all the attention this story is going to get, that there will be somebody come in in a white knight, save the day, and suggest, ‘Oh, it was a mistake that happened, I’m sorry, we’re going to make this right,’ and so we’ll see now that this story has received a lot of attention, especially now, we’ll just see if an exception isn’t made here or some step is taken. If that happens, don’t forget what caused it, and that is existing federal rules.
RUSH: This morning on WFOR-TV CBS4 Eyeball News at 6, coanchor Cynthia Demos and coanchor Jawan Strader reported this about the cancer victim, Diana Smith.
DEMOS: A south Florida woman will now be able to get a lifesaving surgery. Diana Smith is battling a form of leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. She managed to raise enough money to pay for it herself thanks to, of course, friends and the community, but then last week she suddenly found out her Medicaid coverage was dropped. Several lawmakers have jumped in to help and Smith will have the surgery later last week. We’ve been doing this story, it got picked up on the radio, Rush Limbaugh was crediting us with the information he was reading.
STRADER: It’s awesome, and it shows that we have a very giving community. I say that so much, but it’s so true.
RUSH: So it all worked out exactly as we knew it would work out here yesterday, after making the story one of national significance. By the way, she is a leukemia victim. We have our annual Cure-A-Thon, 20th anniversary this Friday, the annual radiothon. We do the Cure-A-Thon to find a cure for leukemia and lymphoma, and, you know, last year we were in the midst of a giant economic downturn, the recession was kicked in in full gear, unemployment was mounting, we went into it with hardly any expectations. Every year we have exceeded the money raised the previous year. But last year we thought, ‘There’s no way, but we’ll do what we can here,’ and everybody from me on down or from me on up depending on your perspective was stunned because last year we broke a record. The previous year was a record, and last year we broke it in the midst of an economic downturn, and the anchor here on WFOR-TV CBS4 Eyeball News at 6 was very correct, talking about we have a very giving community. This country is a very giving country, regardless of economic times. We’ve got the Cure-A-Thon coming up, 20th anniversary on Friday, just as a reminder.