Tipline: Cancer Patient Fights For Health Coverage

A local cancer patient is in the fight of his life. He’s beating the disease, now he’s hoping for the same success with his insurance company.

Glenn Husack wasn’t getting anywhere on his own and eventually called the NewsChannel Three Tipline for help.

Husack is a man of faith, otherwise he would have given up a long time ago.

He’s the former volunteer Chaplin at the Santa Barbara County jail and a cancer survivor.

In September, Anthem Blue Cross insurance cancelled his coverage, a policy he had for years and liked.

On December 11, Husack signed up for Anthem’s Platinum 90 PPO plan through Covered California.

He mailed a check to Anthem Blue Cross and waited. A month later, he mailed another check to Anthem.

“I keep getting emails from Covered California saying ‘Did you send your payment?’ and saying ‘We haven’t received your payment,” Husack told NewsChannel Three during an interview at his Santa Barbara home.

Husack said he has proof showing the checks he mailed to Anthem Blue Cross were delivered, but never cashed. He also says he’s wasted hours on the phone with Anthem and Covered California trying to resolve this.

“They make it sound so good on the commercials and everything. Sounds great, except I haven’t gotten what I chose and I’ve paid for it twice,” said Husack.

NewsChannel Three contacted Anthem Blue Cross on Husack’s behalf and explained the situation. We also explained how it’s affecting Husack at a time when he doesn’t need anymore stress in his life. An Anthem spokesman said he couldn’t talk about the case because of privacy reasons, but he promised to fix the problem.

Husack didn’t schedule any doctor appointments during all of this because he didn’t know if he was covered by any insurance.

“I just wanna get the plan that I chose, the plan that I paid for,” said Husack.

One week after Newchannel Three started asking questions, Husack finally received his insurance ID card and confirmation that he is covered.

“You’ve been really helpful. I don’t know what would have happened if you guys didn’t motivate Anthem to do something. They might still be processing my application,” said Husack with a smile on his face for the first time.

Anthem finally cashed those two checks that Husack mailed in. He said it appears Anthem gave him credit for coverage through March.

Anthem Blue Cross spokesman Darrel Ng contacted NewsChannel Three on Thursday afternoon to explain why Husack’s application took so long to process. Ng said the insurance company was flooded with last minute applications from consumers in late December and that slowed everything down. He said Anthem Blue Cross received 500,000 applications from customers in 14 states and 150,000 of them are from California.