The real terrorists this country needs to fear are the health insurance industry. Each day at least 47 million Americans live in terror and take huge risks because of them. Others live in fear that if they use their "benefit" they'll lose it, or that their claims will be denied.
Meanwhile, United Healthcare, the very company that put me in bankruptcy, is reporting record profits.
This is just one story, and I'm beating my horse to death again. But this is one horse we can't beat enough. (Apologies to horses for an old saying that is, unfortunately, apt.)
(This is an updated version of my very first DKos diary, from March, 2008. And yes, I have some new information in here.)
I realize this will sound like a whine, and maybe it is, but I can whine to anyone anywhere. This is a personal illustration of the daily fear many (too many) Americans live with. If it hasn't hit you yet, try to taste it. Try to feel it. It sucks.
Yes, this is the issue of the day, and I'm grateful to my fellow Kossacks for all their efforts on behalf of health care. The diaries here overwhelm me with their concern and solicitude. So why write another?
Because my experience is personal, and because I learned some shocking things, personally. Most importantly: that there is no way around the fact that we have the most expensive and least reliable health care system in the industrialized world.
I lost my medical insurance over two years ago because I simply couldn't afford it anymore. I'm self-employed, so I didn't get the advantage of a group discount. There I was, with premiums amounting to over $12,000 per year, with a deductible of $9000. (And now that deductible would be $15,000/yr, if I could get insurance.) I had no drug coverage, either. Nor was medical testing of any kind covered. My decision to cancel the insurance involved a drop of over 50% in income thanks to the growing recession. (Those of us out here who directly depend on what others spend felt this economic kick coming long before the media started talking about it.)
And for those who don't want employer-provided benefits taxed, let me tell you I feel little sympathy. Being self-employed I was never able to deduct anymore than 40% of the cost of my health insurance. So you see, I was taxed on the benefit I paid for in full, unlike many.
So I dropped the insurance. Considering that United Healthcare had left me with over $20,000 in bills after an emergency surgery (I almost died), by disallowing everything but the kitchen sink, and sent me into bankruptcy, I couldn't even trust that I'd have any real coverage in a disaster. Did I want to be without insurance? Heck no. The very thought gave me chills. I agonized for months. Especially since a few years before BC/BS had cancelled my policy retroactively because of a test I had that proved I was healthy. (Yes, they dropped me because of a test, despite the results.) I knew when I was forced to drop the last policy that I'd never get another one unless we had major health care reform, and at that time it looked like an impossibility. But it was either drop the policy or let my kids go hungry.
So here I am today, getting virtually no health care at all. I'm diabetic and I have severe arthritis. And I'm scared to death.
I no longer get mammograms. I won't bother with a colonoscopy even if I could scrape together enough money to pay for one. Why? Because if I have cancer there's no place in this country that will treat me. Early detection won't save my life. Nothing will save my life.
I can't afford all of the $4000/year in medicines I need, either. So I take one diabetes medication but not another, all the while aware that my toes are starting to lose sensation, and when my arthritis keeps me from walking, the deterioration speeds up. I can only wonder about my kidneys.
And I'm scared.
I've filled out a Do Not Resuscitate order. My family naturally got upset, but I asked them, "How are you going to pay for it if I have a heart attack and some EMS team carts me off to a hospital, and we have to pay for whatever emergency treatment I get? You guys need the roof, the food, etc. more than I will."
I'm scared.
The "wealthiest" country on earth won't help me with my medical needs at all, because I still work, and I own a house. (And that house is now worth less than I paid for it ten years ago. Conundrum there: I couldn't make a dime on selling the house, but as long as I have it and work, I can't get any Medicaid. And if you don't know, let me add this delightful little bit of info: In FL at least, when you die, the state gets a claim on your estate to pay for any Medicaid you've used.) Problem is, I have kids to think about. Am I going to hock their home and put them on the street to pay for my survival? I don't think so. The home is all they and my partner have to carry on with. I'm just a removable piece of the puzzle, but not the keystone.
Now, if my child gets sick, the house gets sold. For my kids I would sell everything and live under a bridge. But not for me. I'm 59 and I've had a life. They deserve one themselves, the best that I can give them.
So often when something goes wrong that I know I should see a doctor for, I skip it. And I wonder now whether I have only two or three years before the major illness hits that will take me because I can't afford treatment. I wonder how my minor child will manage if I'm no longer here to help support her. Having been at death's door once, I know it can happen.
Sometimes I get angry. An immigrant I know (legal) can fly home to Brazil to get free health care, even though she's on the path to citizenship here. She has a spina bifida, and needs frequent treatment. She can't get it here, but she can get it there for the price of the plane ticket.
I considered moving to France to get universal health care, then panicked when I discovered that in order to get a resident visa, you must already have health insurance. No one will insure me because of pre-existing conditions. Or so I thought.
Then a funny thing happened. I found out that I can get an international health insurance policy that would cover me for everything. Everything. No pre-existing condition exclusion. No huge deductible, merely a $20 co-pay, whether hospital or doctor. Less for medications. I could insure my entire family for one quarter the cost of a U.S. policy. The only limitation was that I couldn't use it in the U.S. until I'd been resident in another country for six months, at which time I would have coverage here, but with a huge deductible and only 80% of the costs covered.
Think about that. Health care is so damned expensive here, compared to every other country on the planet, that the policy would literally change to a high deductible, and a high co-pay. The only country on the planet where this would happen.
What is wrong with this picture? Why do I feel as if I and my family are being held hostage in this middle place where I can still make enough from working not to be on Medicaid, can still be self-supporting and tax-paying... but the vultures hover around, ready to take my family's home if one of us gets sick?
Yeah, I'm whining. But I'm not the only one. Millions of us out here are making these decisions every day, and wondering when the terrorists of the health insurance industry and a screwed up government will cost us our lives and our futures.
But it gets ironic. My parents are on Medicare, of course. Which I help pay for through taxes. They get top of the line treatment for everything. The health care industry takes care of every little blip for them. Yet they feel National Health Care would be a mess. They somehow think the government would screw that up... even though they love Medicare. Dialysis and open heart surgery, and back surgery, and even getting toenails clipped are covered. They complain about the cost of medication...but they can afford it. While I haven't filled many of my prescriptions in eighteen months.
I'm glad they have such great care, but I resent them feeling that I'm not entitled to same thing. How many out there feel the same way, or just never think about it? I can only guess it must be too many people, or we'd have long since had National Health Care.
For the sake of all of us, get on those phones, send those e-mails, and tell those jaw-flappers in Washington that we won't stand for this anymore.
Because the futures of millions are already on the line, and if yours isn't yet, it will be. Soon. Unless we seriously reform health care.