Jenn Coffey was so tired of having her care denied by her Medicare Advantage insurer that she considered signing a do-not-resuscitate order. “There was no more hope,” she said. “There was nothing left for me to hope for.”

Coffey, a former emergency medical technician (EMT) from Manchester, New Hampshire, went on Medicare, the government health insurance program for seniors and others with disabilities, after a breast cancer diagnosis left her unable to work. Like an increasing number of Medicare beneficiaries, she ended up on a for-profit Medicare Advantage plan; a marketer directed her to an option administered by UnitedHealth Group, a $450 billion insurer.

But instead of finding the program a relief, Coffey, fifty-one, says UnitedHeath constantly rejected or second-guessed the care options her doctors suggested for her cancer recovery and for a rare and painful secondary disease that has no standard treatment plan. “There’s lots of ways that they deny stuff that you need,” she said. “So many times that I had the opportunity to try different treatments and medications, the response was, ‘They won’t cover.’”