{"id":333158,"date":"2025-10-26T05:36:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T05:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/333158\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T05:36:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T05:36:18","slug":"cancer-stricken-woman-mistakenly-declared-dead-by-government-has-health-coverage-cut-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/333158\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer-stricken woman mistakenly declared dead by government has health coverage cut off"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Florida woman battling pancreatic cancer was left without medical coverage after the federal government mistakenly declared her dead \u2014 a bureaucratic blunder that has stalled her treatment and forced her family to beg for help during a nationwide government shutdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Patty Rosher, of Pace, Fla., learned she was considered deceased by the Social Security Administration after her husband\u2019s death in May, her daughter, Catina Lacsamana, told local outlet WEAR-TV.<\/a><\/p>\n

The error caused Rosher\u2019s Social Security, Medicare and supplemental insurance benefits to be immediately terminated.<\/p>\n

Patty Rosher, of Pace, Fla., learned she was considered deceased by the Social Security Administration after her husband\u2019s death in May.<\/p>\n

The family only discovered the mistake months later \u2014 when Rosher, 68, was diagnosed with aggressive pancreatic cancer and learned she couldn\u2019t start chemotherapy because her insurance coverage no longer existed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went to go to the doctor\u2019s appointment and they told us that she was no longer covered,\u201d Lacsamana said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome to find out, her Social Security benefits<\/a> have been terminated, as well as her Medicare and her supplemental insurance.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the family, the mix-up began shortly after Rosher\u2019s husband died.<\/p>\n

When Lacsamana attempted to access her mother\u2019s survivor benefits, she noticed the payments appeared in the bank account as \u201cpending\u201d before being returned to the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cCome to find out, when my father was declared deceased, so was she,\u201d Lacsamana said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo she was not therefore eligible to get any benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Rosher (seen left with her daughter Catina Lacsamana) has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.<\/p>\n

The mistake instantly cut off Rosher\u2019s access to critical healthcare, just as she faced a life-threatening cancer diagnosis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a sense of urgency for us,\u201d Lacsamana said.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing what she\u2019s got facing medically, we headed down to the Social Security Administration office and we were told that we wasted our trip \u2014 that there was nothing they could do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Officials at the SSA reportedly told the family their hands were tied due to the government shutdown, which has left the agency operating with a skeleton staff.<\/p>\n

Rosher\u2019s daughter, a nurse practitioner, said the family is now considering paying out of pocket for her mother\u2019s treatment while trying to reverse the federal error.<\/p>\n

Pancreatic cancer often requires immediate and aggressive chemotherapy, with delays significantly lowering survival odds.<\/p>\n

The error caused Rosher\u2019s Social Security, Medicare and supplemental insurance benefits to be immediately terminated. Rosher is seen right with daughter Tina Bordelon.<\/p>\n

Desperate for answers, the family reached out to their local congressman, Rep. Jimmy Patronis (R-Fla.), who promised to intervene.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what we do \u2014 we pick up the phone, we call, we advocate, we break things loose,\u201d Patronis said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first I\u2019ve heard of it, but I would love to go engage on her behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within hours of the story airing, Patronis\u2019s office contacted the family, Lacsamana said, raising hopes that her mother\u2019s benefits \u2014 and her ability to start treatment \u2014 could soon be restored.<\/p>\n

While grateful for the outreach, Lacsamana said her mother\u2019s ordeal highlights systemic failures in the nation\u2019s healthcare bureaucracy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of empathy from people who are really there to serve the people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m a healthcare provider, a nurse practitioner, and I see patients like this every day with their healthcare that aren\u2019t getting the coverage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosher\u2019s case is far from unique.<\/p>\n

Fewer than 10,000 Americans are mistakenly declared dead each year by the Social Security Administration<\/a>, triggering automatic terminations of federal benefits and insurance coverage, according to government data.<\/p>\n

Every year, hundreds of Americans are mistakenly declared dead by the Social Security Administration. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n

Victims often face months of red tape before being \u201cbrought back to life\u201d in the government\u2019s records.<\/p>\n

The current government shutdown has only worsened the delays. With limited staff and frozen administrative functions, even urgent cases like Rosser\u2019s have been caught in limbo.<\/p>\n

As of this week, Rosher remains without coverage and cannot begin her cancer treatment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel like as a society and as the greatest country in the world, we can do better,\u201d Lacsamana said.<\/p>\n

The Post has sought comment from the Social Security Administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida woman battling pancreatic cancer was left without medical coverage after the federal government mistakenly declared her…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":333159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[235,723,49089,210,1141,3168,1142,711,67,132,68,1154],"class_list":{"0":"post-333158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-government-shutdown","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-health-care","13":"tag-health-insurance","14":"tag-healthcare","15":"tag-social-security","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-us-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115438851374984557","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}