Maggie's Story

When I was 15 years old I worked at Karmelkorn/Orange Julius at the Sunset Plaza mall in Norfolk, Nebraska. One of my co-workers was a girl named Maggie Stoffel. Maggie was fun and crazy and interesting. She was two years older than me, and she sold me one of her old dresses for me to wear to homecoming.

Fast forward to 2009. I haven't seen hide or hair of Maggie in years, but thanks to Facebook we have reconnected. Maggie had some rough times between graduating from high school and 2009. She is a single mom to three kids. She is going to Wayne State College and majoring in Political Science. Maggie's lungs are shutting down. Maggie, a mom of three in her early thirties with no money, needs a lung transplant. Maggie had cancer and a bone marrow transplant when she was a child which has caused her lungs to shut down.

Now, it's 2010. Nebraska doesn't do lung transplants often, so the waiting list is longer than her life expectancy. Minnesota rejected her. St. Louis's waiting list is too long. Finally, a hospital in Ohio has accepted her to be on their transplant list. YES! She gets excited and looks forward to playing in the yard with her kids, to going to her daughter's track meets, to leaving her oxygen tank behind. Then, the bad news comes: Nebraska Medicaid will not pay for her to have the transplant in Ohio. WHAT? With her new lungs so close, Maggie doesn't know what to do. She is angry at a health care system that denies her a future with her children. She is angry that Paris Hilton would have lungs by now.

Please help me help Maggie. She is appealing Nebraska Medicaid's decision to deny her coverage for the transplant. She needs $700,000 to pay for a transplant. She needs everyone out there to write to Senator Mike Flood and ask him to start standing up for the needy Nebraskans in his district and not just for Nebraska's fetuses.

Even if you aren't in Mike Flood's district, send him an e-mail. Tell him that the health "care" system is denying a woman a chance at life. Maggie can be saved. She isn't a lost cause. She isn't terminal. . . if she gets new lungs. Nebraska Medicaid needs to pay for Maggie's transplant. Here is the information to contact Sen. Flood about Maggie Stoffel Wilson and Nebraska's decision to let her die: Sen. Mike Flood District 19 Room 2103 P.O. Box 94604 State Capitol Lincoln, NE 68509 Phone: (402) 471-2929 email: mflood@leg.ne.gov