We are so screwed on health care. Seriously. As streams of newly unemployed and underemployed Americans pours in applying for Medicaid, state budgets are going into crisis mode.
And even so, many of the unemployed who apply for Medicaid won't get any health care coverage at all. Like my sister, whose previous job didn't offer any health care coverage (because of a pre-existing condition), so she's not eligible for Cobra.
When she then tried to apply for Medicaid, she was told she didn't qualify. Then the person she was speaking with paused, and said, "You're not by any chance pregnant, are you?"
Long pause. Then my sister replied that no, she was not pregnant.
Another long pause, then the woman asked my sister, "Do you think there's a chance you might become pregnant? You'd be covered if you were pregnant...just so you know. I mean, do you think you might, now that you know?"
Wow. This is what it's come to. State employees recommending pregancy for young, single, unemployed women, just so that they can get some damn health care. And how many other desperate young people have been given this...advice? How many, in their desperation, may actually have taken it?
As more and more Americans find themselves without jobs, many will end up in the same boat as my sister. No health care coverage, and because of the economy and lack of good jobs right now, they're not going to be choosy about taking yet another job that doesn't offer health care coverage.
Down the road many will up in emergency rooms for routine health care, or simply stop going to the doctor or maintaining their health or taking preventative measures. Indeed, the New York Times reports that one in seven Americans under 65 are going without their prescription medication. All this will only make Americans sicker and send health care costs skyrocketing even further in the long term.
That's why I can only hope that the Stimulus package passes, and quickly. The Timesreported yesterday that:
To help states handle what is rapidly becoming an unmanageable burden, President Obama and Congressional Democrats are negotiating a sizable increase in federal aid to state Medicaid programs as part of their economic stimulus package. Among other initiatives, they are considering extending eligibility to those who have lost jobs that did not provide health benefits and who do not therefore have the option of continuing employer-sponsored coverage under the federal Cobra law.
That would be a start--and it needs to get done now. But it's obviously not enough. How much clearer could it be, during an economic crisis like this one, that health care must no longer be tied to employers? With so many jobs lost, and health care (if they had it) lost with those jobs...the government is going to end up covering a good portion of people anyway--and at this point, states don't have the money to do it.
Can we just get health care for everyone, please? Sooner rather than later? We didn't wait on the banks when they went into "crisis mode." We didn't hesitate to provide billons when they asked. So why are we waiting so long on the health care crisis?