When I was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease in 2017, I was working for a major U.S. airline carrier with strong health insurance coverage. During COVID, as a flight attendant and flight service duty manager with 30 years of experience, I accepted an early-out retirement package. Dialysis had made it increasingly difficult to continue working, and my doctor advised it, given my high risk. As part of that package, I kept active employee-rate health coverage for 36 months. This stability was invaluable and allowed me to delay enrolling in Medicare until the month of my transplant. No dialysis patient should [...]

I was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease, or kidney failure, at only 20 years old. Two years later, I began receiving dialysis to stay alive. I lost my job right before beginning dialysis and ultimately began dialysis on Medicare. Since Medicare only covers 80%, and my disability income disqualified me from Medicaid, I could not cover the remaining 20%. I had to go into medical debt just to survive. Six years of dialysis, a kidney transplant and 17 years later, I can now say that I am out of debt. I became a nurse, received an MBA, worked hard and [...]

At just 25 years old, I was diagnosed with renal failure caused by systemic lupus and immediately began dialysis. I was pregnant, undergoing chemotherapy and fighting for my life. The last thing I should have had to worry about was losing my health insurance. But I was terrified. My private insurance through Blue Cross BlueShield was the only thing standing between my family and financial ruin. My husband and I even discussed divorcing on paper just to protect him from bankruptcy. No one facing a life-threatening diagnosis should ever have to consider something like that. After 14 months of dialysis, [...]

I was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2006. I started dialysis immediately and received my first kidney transplant just 18 months later. That kidney gave me 13 years – years I spent working, living fully, and maintaining my health. Then, in 2020, my kidney failed. I returned to dialysis for five and a half years before receiving my second transplant this past February. Throughout my second period on dialysis, I continued working and maintained private insurance through my employer. However, a recent Supreme Court decision made it possible for insurers to push dialysis patients off their private coverage prematurely, causing [...]

After 18 years on dialysis and nearly four years post-transplant, I have seen firsthand what happens when dialysis patients don’t have the insurance protections they need. As a longtime patient advocate, I’ve watched others struggle through a system that too often pulls the rug out from under people at their most vulnerable. Historically, there’s been legal protections allowing dialysis patients to stay on their private insurance for 30 months before switching to Medicare. That protection was a lifeline. It gave patients a real window to stabilize, navigate their treatment, and potentially receive a transplant before being forced onto Medicare. Without [...]