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NBC 5

North Richland Hills state senator has had a rare kidney disease for more than 30 years

By Julie Fine

Before Wednesday, few people knew State Sen. Kelly Hancock (R-North Richland Hills) had been diagnosed with a rare kidney disease for more than three decades.

Thanks to a donation from his son-in-law, Hancock underwent a successful transplant Wednesday afternoon and both men are doing well in recovery.

Prior to the surgery, Hancock and his son-in-law spoke with NBC 5.

“I don’t look like that I have organs failing. I do. I have had one failing for a long time,” said Hancock, who is an energetic lawmaker and a marathon runner. “I have wanted to live a full life without people knowing, or feeling sorry for me, or whatever, in order to get to the point that I could say, that I could be here and say, ‘God is sufficient and I am good with it.’”

Hancock made a visit to his doctor 31 years ago after not feeling well while playing racquetball. Tests would reveal he had IgA nephropathy, also known as Berger’s disease.

The disease occurs when immunoglobulin A deposits build up in the kidneys, causing inflammation that damages kidney tissues. IgA is an antibody—a protein made by the immune system to protect the body from foreign substances such as bacteria or viruses, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

Moving forward, Hancock was regularly tested for kidney function, watched his diet and tried to stay as healthy as possible. Six years ago, he was told he would need a kidney within two years. He beat the clock, for years, until late last year when his doctor said he was at a point where he needed a new kidney.

“There is a threshold that you can’t get on the transplant list until you are bad, bad, bad, and so I had to be bad, bad, bad to get there, and he was like, ‘Alright, I need you to come in and test again,’ and that is when I was like, ‘OK, I am there,’” said Hancock.

Then it came to telling his family, which he did at Thanksgiving. At first, he tried to make light of it, but they all faced the reality.

“That is when I told them, I said, ‘Look, I was making light because that is what I do. That is how I deal with stuff.’ But the reality is I need a kidney and you know the only way really to do it is that I am going to have to be on dialysis for five to seven years to qualify for a deceased donor,” Hancock explained.

But his family was quick to get tested to see if they could make a donation to him. It turned out, it wasn’t a blood relative that was the best match.

“I got tested thinking of course I’ll be supportive. I’ll go get tested. There is no way this would work, thinking my wife would be the match, or somebody else,” said son-in-law Greg Cox. “You don’t get the opportunity to help somebody like this, and Kelly would do the same for anybody that he loved without thinking, without having to be asked, and so it’s neat to be able to do it.”

Through everything, the Hancocks have relied on faith and stayed positive.

While he has kept the news of his transplant to himself, for the most part, Hancock now said he wants to raise awareness.

Through this, he said, he has seen first-hand the need that is out there and that the healthier you are the lower you are on the list for a transplant and the longer you will be on dialysis because of greater demand than supply.

“I was blessed, incredibly fortunate to have a living donor — 2.5% of the people who have kidney transplants do it before going on dialysis,” said Hancock, adding “organ donation is very feasible, it is very doable, and I don’t think we promote it enough or talk about it enough and it is a very private issue, but we wanted to bring attention too. We can address these issues. We can address these needs. And people, there is a need.”

The recovery for Hancock and Cox isn’t easy and could take several months. But they are ready and hope their story will help others.

Hancock is serving in his third term in the Texas legislature. He is running against Democrat Gwenn Burud in November.

“As a fellow Texan, I am joined by my staff, volunteers and supporters as we keep Senator Hancock and his family in our hearts and minds,” Burud said in a statement Wednesday night.

Houston Chronicle

By The Editorial Board

It sounded like a big victory for Texas patients: A new state law protects them from sticker shock if they receive an unexpected medical bill from a doctor who wasn’t in their insurance provider network.

But the victory wasn’t as big as it seemed.

The law signed last month by Gov. Greg Abbott applies only to Texans who buy insurance policies regulated by the Texas Department of Insurance. Left out is the 40 percent of the Texas insurance market, including employee benefits programs self-funded by large companies, regulated by the federal government through the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

Texas’ new law takes effect in September. It was authored by state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-North Richland Hills, who has been trying to protect patients from surprise medical bills for 10 years. It was Hancock’s 2009 bill that created a mediation process to settle billing disputes between medical providers and patients whose insurance companies wouldn’t cover out-of-network charges.

Mediation since 2015 has saved Texans more than $42 million in health care costs not paid by their insurers, including $8 million last year alone, according to the insurance department. But despite outreach efforts, many patients never knew they were eligible for mediation. They instead scraped up the cash to pay any balance owed after their insurance company kicked in its obligated share.

That shouldn’t happen as often under the new law, which takes consumers out of the equation by replacing mediation between the patient and insurer with what Hancock calls “baseball arbitration,” where an intermediary with medical billing expertise settles the dispute.

“It forces both parties to be more realistic in setting actual charges and payments,” Hancock told the editorial board. “The settlement is based on whoever comes closest to what the arbitrator believes is the fair market price. Whoever is farther away from that number is going to lose.”

A companion bill that would have made arbitration available to self-funded insurance plans was abandoned during the last legislative session. Hancock explained that participation would have been voluntary since those plans follow ERISA rules instead of TDI regulations. “Hopefully, we will see Congress address the issue,” he said.

That may not happen. Hospitals are opposing a bill in the U.S. Senate they say amounts to price-setting. The legislation would require insurance companies to pay out-of-network doctors at a rate tied to in-network fees for a specific treatment or procedure. Doctors, hospitals, and other medical facilities would be banned from “balance billing” patients an amount above what they are paid by the insurer.

“In short, the federal government would bind doctors and hospitals to the terms of contracts they haven’t signed,” said Heritage Foundation fellow Doug Badger in a commentary for the Daily Signal. Badger said physicians have a right to set fees for their services. He said the better solution is to make sure patients know beforehand that they are seeing someone out-of-network.

That may sound reasonable, but not when the patient is in an emergency room or similar situation and has little option but to receive treatment then and there.

The success of Hancock’s legislation despite initial opposition by the Texas Medical Association is reason to believe Congress can find a similar solution for patients with federally regulated insurance policies. In fact, TMA President David Fleeger said the physicians group would help write the rules TDI will use for arbitration under the new statute.

It’s good to see Texas join the 25 states that already have laws protecting patients from unexpected medical bills. Now it’s time for Congress to extend that protection to more Americans. Even President Trump says he wants that to happen. He agrees that people shouldn’t open their mail to find a doctor’s bill jarring enough to make them sick.