After all, her husband Hank was sick, and caring for him was more important.
But after he passed, the shortness of breath got worse, so bad in fact that when Roat finally sought medical treatment, doctors decided she was having a heart attack.
These days, Roat is on oxygen, which is supplied to her by Lincare, a national company with a Missoula office. A company representative comes out to her house in Alberton every two weeks, delivering a new tank and making sure the machine itself works properly.
If for some reason the machine is not performing correctly, it's either fixed or replaced at no charge to Roat.
Medicare pays the bill for Roat's oxygen and the service provided by Lincare.
But that arrangement may be altered under changes authorized by Congress last year. The change, an effort to save money on rental fees Medicare pays for oxygen machines, essentially gives patients ownership of those machines after they've rented them for three years.
That might seem like a good thing. And it certainly may be a cost-efficient thing.
“There's no doubt that oxygen was the $400 hammer for a while,” said Mike Calcaterra, president of the Big Sky Association of Home Medical Equipment Suppliers.
Calcaterra's hammer reference is to stories where the Pentagon paid exorbitant fees for basics, like hammers and toilet paper. And he doesn't disagree that the government was overpaying for oxygen in some cases.
But Calcaterra said that while the government's effort to save money is admirable, Congress has chosen a path that is fraught with peril, and not just for companies that provide oxygen and equipment.
“I'm all in favor of savings, but what's going to happen with this is you are going to give a complex machine that needs to be serviced to an old person who has no idea what to do with it,” Calcaterra said. “This is going to sever a relationship that is pretty critical to the patient and could, in fact, be deadly.”
Obviously, the change is bad for medical equipment suppliers and pharmacies that are paid by Medicare for providing oxygen equipment.
“It's definitely true that this is bad for us,” said Bob Sherman of Valley Medical Supply in Stevensville. “This will be pretty hard for smaller companies, but the larger issue is whether it's good for patients.”
The new system would supposedly have measures that would mitigate possible problems, but Sherman and Calcaterra are dubious.
And as a patient, Virginia Roat is more than sure she doesn't want to deal with a faulty oxygen machine or tank.
“Well, I'm a cranky old lady, but I don't fancy myself a repairman for oxygen tanks,” she said. “I'm not sure I'm capable of doing much more than calling for help as far as that thing's concerned.”
The change imposed by Congress will start to take effect in January 2009, when the first patients have had their rental equipment for three years. Roat would be one of those patients.
Already, pushed by medical equipment organizations and patients' groups, several bills have surfaced in Congress that would essentially undo what's already been done.
Bills introduced in both houses of Congress would rescind the ownership provision in the new law, which was part of the Deficit Reductions Act. That would suit Roat just fine. She's happy with things the way they are.
“I can't breathe, and that's all there is to it,” she said. “I don't want to be on the phone to 9-1-1 because I can't breathe and the machine's broken.”
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