I am over $11,000 in debt and may have to file for bankruptcy. Not because I go crazy with my credit cards-mine are paid off and I only use them for emergencies. Not because I made the mistake of taking out a mortgage for a house I can’t afford-I don’t even own a home. I’ve served my country proudly in two wars, and I was about as responsible with my money and my bills as a person can be. I’m in debt over $11,000 because my insurance won’t pay for my medical bills.
I know that $11,000 may not seem like much to some people on here, but it’s almost two-thirds of what I make in a year (about $19,000). Here’s why I owe:
In mid-November I had zero energy. At first I thought it was just because the election was over and my body wanted to rest. But eventually it got so bad that I was having trouble moving up a flight of stairs without needing to take a breath. I would sleep for 10 hours a day and still need a nap later. And one day after I had dragged myself through some grocery shopping, I went home and asked my 50 year old mother to help me put them away (if you want a textbook example of how bad the economy is, as well as how we treat our veterans, think about the fact that a 27 year old veteran of both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom is living with his mom to avoid homelessness). I went to lay down for another long nap. My mom, noticing my condition, begged me to go to the emergency room. I told her: "I can’t afford it!" My work provides insurance, but it’s junk insurance. It’s only slightly better than nothing, and a trip to the emergency room means a mountain of debt. I already told myself I would have to be one foot in the grave before I’d visit a hospital.
But my mom offered to pay for it, and even though I told her she can’t afford it, either, she kept insisting that I go and I finally caved.
While in the emergency room, I was told that I had had a heart attack earlier that week and needed to go to the hospital. I told the doctors that I would drive instead of taking an ambulance because I couldn’t afford the ambulance. But the doctors kept pushing and after my mom offered once again to pay my bill, I took the ambulance (FWIW, I have no intention of sticking my mom with these bills).
I spent four days in the hospital while the doctors performed a heart catheter. They found out my heart was fine. But after doing some other tests, they found out I have type II diabetes, as well as hypertension and high blood sugar. After a dietician told me I was consuming over 2,000 calories a day in soda and juice, there wasn’t any need to explain how I had gotten so sick. I joked with the doctor that after I had survived insurgents in Iraq and came home without a scratch, it was high-fructose corn syrup that nearly took me out!:)
I left the hospital and a few weeks later I received all the bills. When you add them all up, I owed $11,564.23, after the insurance company paid what they agreed to pay (about $3,000).
I don’t have $11,000. My family doesn’t, either. I don’t know anyone who does.
We hear many stories about people who lose everything because they have no health insurance. I’m one of the SiCKO stories, a person who was lucky enough to have private health insurance, but got the shaft anyway.
We need a single-payer universal healthcare plan in this country, just like they have in Canada, Europe, and every industrialized democracy throughout the world. There’s no reason why anyone should have to be afraid to go to the doctor or hospital because of financial ruin. There’s no reason why anyone should be facing financial ruin because their private health insurance is a complete pile of crap.
So I write this hoping that it’ll reach the rec list and people working with Obama will see it. While Obama has a health care plan that is better than what we have now, it simply isn’t enough. Merely being able to afford a junk health insurance plan isn’t enough. We need to know that if we have a catastrophic health event that we’ll be covered. We need Medicare for All.
I’m asking that soon-to-be President Obama and the Democrats in the Senate and House fight for and pass HR 676, the bill that will make single-payer health care in this country a reality. I don’t want more Americans having the same problems I do.
In the meantime, I’m selling personal items in the hopes that I can at least pay off some of the smaller bills. Hopefully I won’t have to declare bankruptcy.