Iowans Stand out in Support of Controversial Health Care Ruling

It only took a tumble and a mouthful of water to nearly end Amy Ward's life.

In summer 2011, Ward and her husband, Ross Daniels, took a vacation to the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota. While getting out of a kayak, Ward stumbled into the water, accidentally swallowing a small bit of the lake.

Two months later, she found herself in intensive care and hovering on the verge of death, having developed a rare form of fungal pneumonia.

On Thursday afternoon, just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled mostly in favor of controversial health-care legislation, Ward told a coalition of Iowa organizations how those health-care laws saved her life.

"A couple months (after falling into the water), I got a bad cold," Ward said. "I went into the doctor, and he gave me some antibiotics. My husband and I thought that in a week, I'd be all better. A week later, I was on life support."

Ward spent six weeks in intensive care. She received medication that cost around $3,000 a day, continuous dialysis when her kidneys started failing, and had four surgeries, including a tracheotomy.

Thursday's press conference was Ward's first speaking engagement. She spoke calmly, loudly and confidently, despite the small tube emerging from her throat. Her shaking fingers covered the tube while she spoke, helping her control the flow of air.

The combined total of her care to date was $1.5 million. Had Ward gotten sick just two years earlier, her insurance would have been capped at $1 million.

"Before I got sick, I thought, 'Oh, a million dollars will always be fine'," Ward said. "I looked at that number on my insurance card and thought, 'Who would ever need more than a million dollars of health care?' But it wouldn't have been enough to save me."

Ward's husband, Ross Daniels, described for the room what it was like to watch his wife struggle to live in a medically-induced coma for six weeks.

"Imagine the heartbreak of telling your partner or child as they awaken from a life threatening illness that simply because of their own bad luck, or a freak accident, their dreams of retirement or a college education or keeping your home are now gone," Daniels said. "Imagine their feeling of shame and guilt at hearing what their illness has caused their family."

Ward nodded in agreement.

"Finally, imagine hearing, while your life lies in a coma, the heartless cries of 'Let them die!' followed by applause," Daniels said.

Ward's journey isn't quite over yet — she still has at least one surgery to go.