Some of you have read a few of my diaries about my wife's kidney failure (she's 22, I'm 23, both students, although she dropped out because of sickness last semester).
In the past two months we've applied for and utilized everything we could find: Community clinics with sliding scales, the Utah State University Health and Wellness Center, the Intermountain Health Care (IHC) financial assistance program, a Utah high-risk insurance pool, Medicaid, Disability, foodstamps, etc.
I'm here to report a day of quite good news, although in relatively small quantities.
Thanks to a wonderful case worker at the local workforce services, we were able to qualify for the state high-risk insurance pool, and we qualified for 200 dollars worth of foodstamps every month.
This took about 30 pages of information from me, and required a cross country shipment of my wife's original birth certificate (no copy), various bank account records, proof of student loans being the cause of any balance whatsoever in our account, a total of 6 different signed statements from past and present employers, etc etc etc. I drove down to the Workforce services a dozen times and faxed these into their system, jotting down the case number that is now burned into my mind for eternity.
I have to say that as a white male, with English as my first and only language (the quintessential Enfranchised American, as opposed to the Disenfranchised),
as someone who has done door to door sales for 3 summers of my life and thus is extremely comfortable communicating with strangers,
as a guy with a strong ability to jump through hoops,
as a person who's filed his own taxes for the past 3 years, including 1099's and various independent contractor deductions,
as someone who's applied for and been approved for various personal loans,
purchased multiple vehicles,
lived in 13 apartments over the past 5 years and initiated as many leases, selling most of them early to break contract,
moved by car over 5000 miles in only the last year alone,
as a person who considers himself to have a pretty strong ability to communicate effectively -having done undergraduate work in English, and currently doing graduate work in literature and writing, including an upcoming position as a teacher of English 101 and a position as an editor for a science professor,
who considers himself skilled in getting what he wants and relating to others - with experience as captain of a college sports team,
as a guy who scored in the 87th and 85th percentile on the mathematical and verbal sections of the Graduate school entrance exam, and who received a perfect score on the analytical writing section,
who even understands the difference between "Effect" and "Affect" and often affects his audience through effective use of the two terms,
THAT,
I was at the complete mercy of this complicated and absurd system, and that I qualified for food stamps and the health insurance pool SOLELY because of the diligent effort and hard work of one Tonya, a case worker who had 299 other cases to be working on (I asked her). I never met her, but it was all because of her that we actually got to where we are.
In OTHER WORDS,
I can't imagine how in the HELL we could have navigated that minefield as, say, an American citizen who speaks English as a second language, or who is merely uncomfortable being extremely bold and taking a lot of initiative.
The safety net is like a fishing net with 10 inch holes. I feel we landed on a string by luck. And the republicans are lighting fires beneath it all the time.
Also, lets not kid ourselves. The high-risk insurance pool won't do anything for our specialist visits, which is exclusively what we need. It will act as a stepping ladder to medicaid, somehow -in some way that I don't understant, according to Tonya, who I trust with all my little heart. Also, 200 bucks a month is 200 bucks a month. It is what it is. Thank you, all you fellow citizens, who are currently contributing from your taxes to help us out in our time of need. I know that many of you here, and my wife and I, think this is an important part of a civilized nation —that when people are in need, they can get help, and when they become able, they give help.
Another bit of good news, potentially much bigger, is that Intermountain Health Care erased our current debt ($160), because apparently we are qualified for their financial assistance program for at least 6 months. This means we aught to be able to go see the ENT and the Internal Medicine Doc this week. The ENT said they couldn't see us if we didn't qualify for the financial assistance. Reasonably so; they need to get paid. It's not a doctor problem, it's a systemic health care industry problem. I didn't know their financial assistance program would pay for ALL of our bills though, besides like a $50 dollar copay.
3rd, we've been getting dental work from the kindest and awesomest dentist either of us have ever had, and he works two days a week at this community clinic with sliding scales. I highly doubt he's making as much there as he is in private practice down the street a few miles. They let us get treated for their minimum scale amount, 50%. it was 25% when we applied, and jumped to 50% a week later, probably because of state/federal budget cuts.
I can't tell you how many times I almost gave up on all the paper work associated with all of these applications. Half a dozen times I literally almost threw in the towel. It's impossible to explain WHY it is so difficult to successfully navigate these application processes. One thing for sure, it is not the local workers. They work their little asses off (monday through Thursday, 7-6, thanks to John Huntsman's energy saving 4 day work week policy).
Overall, I've been impressed by the commitment of government workers. The problems smell of being intentional, and placed in an effort to screen people out -not ineligible people, no, just your average eligible citizens who give up after feeling slammed again and again by wall after wall.
If you are in such a boat, keep pressing on. We're still climbing the hill with Disability/medicaid applications, with a different case worker who is, arguably, not quite as impressive as tonya, but very kind. So there it is. Far too long to be enjoyed by many, but hopefully of interest to a few of you who have followed a bit of our story and been hoping for some good news.