US: Insurer’s refusal to pay for cancer patient’s proton therapy ‘immoral and barbaric’ says recusing judge
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A judge who survived cancer has recused himself from a case in which an insurer refused to pay for a cancer sufferer’s proton radiation therapy, branding the decision as “immoral and barbaric”.
United States District Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017, will not sit in the case of Richard Cole vs. United Healthcare Insurance Company.
Judge Scola said he had “consulted with top medical experts throughout the country. All the experts opined that if I opted for radiation treatment, proton radiation was by far the wiser course of action.”
He also noted that his friend was refused payment for the treatment.
“Fortunately, he had the resources to pay $150,000 for the treatment and only upon threat of litigation did United Healthcare agree to reimburse him.”
The judge said it was “undisputed among legitimate medical experts that proton radiation therapy is not experimental and causes much less collateral damage than traditional radiation”.
He concluded that “To deny a patient this treatment, if it is available, is immoral and barbaric.”
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