Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 25, 1992 TAG: 9203250257
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It was from Charlene Cochran at WFIR radio, telling him the station had decided to postpone his guest spot on her morning call-in show about insurance coverage. The show was scheduled for this morning at 9.
Cochran left a message on his home answering machine, while a few miles away in Fincastle about 200 people were attending Lorraine Smusz's funeral. Smusz died unexpectedly Saturday night after it was thought she was winning a long public fight against cancer.
WFIR had decided to postpone this morning's show because the station wanted to do more research into the debate surrounding Lorraine Smusz's medical treatment and insurance coverage. The station also wanted representatives from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Virginia to appear on the show, but the company would not send anyone.
Still, Frank Smusz said Tuesday, he was surprised by the show's postponement.
Despite his wife's death and the timing of her funeral, he had planned to go on the show. He said he had talked to Cochran about it Monday, and she told him she was happy he still wanted to do the program.
In addition, he understood that representatives from Blue Cross would be on the call-in show, and he said he was looking forward to the face-to-face encounter as a forum for debating insurance issues.
He said his wife would have wanted him to.
More than a year ago, she had gone public in her battle against Blue Cross to cover a controversial cancer treatment that the company said was experimental and had refused to pay for.
Smusz said he wanted to go on the radio with the memory of Lorraine's story still fresh in people's minds. He hoped it would help bring in more listeners and more attention to the plight of other families facing huge medical bills and no insurance coverage.
Smusz had planned to bring along Susan Ferris, the wife of Garry Ferris, a Bedford County man with Hodgkin's disease who died this month before he could undergo the same treatment that Lorraine had: high-dose chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant. The Ferrises also had been battling Blue Cross.
But Smusz said Cochran told him the station decided to postpone the show because it wanted to do more research into the debate over which medical treatments are considered experimental and which treatments aren't.
"I was like, man, yesterday it was all set," Smusz said.
He also said Cochran told him Blue Cross had decided to pull out of the show because it came so soon after Lorraine Smusz's death. Frank Smusz said he was told that Blue Cross officials felt it was too sensitive an issue right now to talk about on a radio show.
Reached at WFIR Tuesday, Cochran referred questions to program director Bill Bratton, who confirmed that the station wanted to do more research before having Smusz and Ferris and Blue Cross all on the show together.
Bratton also said Blue Cross never had agreed to do the show, and he had been awaiting a decision from the company when Lorraine Smusz died. He said the company now believes it would be better to do the show another time.
"Two of their customers had died, and they didn't think it would be proper to go on the air," he said. The program has not been rescheduled.
by CNB