Blue Shield Facing Backlash for Denied Claims After Retired San Francisco Firefighter Dies From Lung Cancer

Retired San Francisco firefighter Ken Jones died 14 months after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, which his insurance denied coverage of select treatments.

According to ABC7, Blue Shield, the fire department's insurance carrier, denied coverage for some of Jones' treatments. Jones, a 17-year veteran was 71 when he died. ABC7  reported that he was not the only firefighter whose cancer treatments had been denied by Blue Shield.

“I believe, wholeheartedly, that they expedited his death,” Jeanine Nicholson, the former chief of the San Francisco Fire Department and a friend, told NBC Bay Area. “They should be ashamed.”

This battle between Jones and the insurance company began in January 2026, when Jones asked the city to intervene after being denied coverage.

When ABC7 Eyewitness News spoke to her in January 2026, Helen Horvath, Jones' wife, said, "After we got some publicity, thank you, a Blue Shield physician reached out to Ken's physician, and they worked out a different plan that Blue Shield would cover. It's still an incomplete plan."

Since the battle began, it has prompted an investigation into other cases, as the city’s mayor vowed to support firefighters. According to San Francisco's Health Service Board, about 5,000 city employees and retirees are insured by Blue Shield.

City leaders are now asking anyone who has been denied cancer treatment to speak up.

“We need to hold insurance companies accountable for their actions,” Nicholson said. “They are in the business of making money. They are not always in the business of giving people the best care or the care that they deserve.”

According to the New York Post, Blue Shield repeatedly argued that, in Jones’ case, the denials were due to medical guidelines that did not support the combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy that Jones’ oncologist requested.

Dr. Matthew Gubens, the oncologist, has claimed that Blue Shield’s interpretation is wrong. He said he tried to appeal the denial of the claim in writing but was denied.

He had told NBC Bay Area, “There’s a gray area in medicine,” adding, “The time spent trying to get approval of a regimen that I requested, [Ken] lost ground – tumors are growing, pain is increasing, his appetite is going down.”

Tony Stefani with the Cancer Prevention Foundation said firefighters with a cancer diagnosis have a 14 percent higher chance of dying than other cancer patients in the general population.

"Current statistics tell us that 65 percent of the men and women in our profession are going to contract some form of cancer in their lifetime. Some of them will be fatal," Stefani said.