Health Care Story of the Week

Jennifer Perry is an energetic 32 year old. She volunteers at the Montgomery Christian Academy, where music students know her as “pretty Miss Jennifer.” Jennifer likes singing opera and art music, and has a Bachelor of Arts with a vocal concentration. Many of the people she met as President of the Handicap Educational Liaison Partners were surprised to learn that she is disabled, because she looks able-bodied and healthy. But Jennifer has advanced multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease that makes the brain and spinal cord unable to communicate with each other.

Jennifer had been on TennCare for about seven years when she received a letter that said she would be cut off later this month.

Among other symptoms, MS gives Jennifer blurry vision, numbness in her fingers, difficulty balancing, breathing, and moving, urinary and bowel difficulty, hypersomnia (similar to narcolepsy), hives, a weak immune system, severe allergies, muscle spasms, chronic pain, severe migraines, blackouts, mood disorder, and depression. She has had to have her front teeth replaced multiple times due to falling, and was recently forced to quit her job at a household appliance store because her symptoms were getting so bad.

Due to the two year waiting period, Jennifer will not be eligible for Medicare until late 2010. Without TennCare or Medicare, she will not be able to afford most of the roughly 25 medications she needs to remain stable. Her medications cost about $60,000 per year, but her annual income is below $10,000. “If I don’t have my medicine, something bad is going to happen to me,” she said.

Despite her disability, Jennifer worked from age 16 until just a few months ago, when her symptoms got so bad that she was forced to stop. Then, Jennifer’s father passed away suddenly. This and her escalating symptoms made her decide to move in with her elderly mother, who is also disabled. But Jennifer’s troubles weren’t over yet. Soon afterwards, she received the letter about her TennCare ending. Jennifer and her mother pray that Jennifer will find some way to get the health care her life depends upon.