PUBLIC OPTION PLEASE!
I've been quite literally paralyzed with sadness, gloom and despair as I've watched our healthcare fate debated by politicians and pundits all of whom have Cadillac salaries, Cadillac stock portfolios, Cadillac healthcare and Cadillac health insurance.
Pat Leahy summed it up appropriately yesterday after meeting with President Clinton.
"None of us have to worry about health care, but we’ve got an awful lot of Americans and awful lot of Vermonters who don’t have health care."
But tossing the American people unaffordable junk insurance, is not fixing the system. Not by a long shot.
The American Dream Shattered and Destroyed
These are new friends of mine. Philip Knisely (pronounced, you bet, nicely) and Jose Luis Vara Jr. I've been friends with these two great Americans for about a week or so.
Here's the story of Philip and Jose.
Philip Knisely is a living kidney donor. Jose is his recipient. Jose isn't Philip's brother or even his best friend, he's just a guy from work.
This a story of unparalleled generosity--one human being giving the gift of life to another. When I asked, Philip told me, he gave his kidney because Jose has three children and he wanted them to have a father. His motives were that simple--that pure.
But sadly, this is also a cautionary story of the American dream shattered and destroyed--by illness, despite being insured.
It was covered quite extensively by the Austin American Statesman and I urge you to read the reporting.
Philip Knisely is a gay American. That's right, Philip can't donate blood, but he can donate his kidney. Thank God, Philip is very healthy and has zero HIV/AIDS issues. But the story isn't about HIV/AIDS, it's about our very broken healthcare system.
So what happens when you get a live donor transplant? Well, probably the first thing that doesn't happen is the infamous "wallet biopsy". A wallet biopsy is the procedure whereby your financial situation is carefully scrutinized before you're given a transplant, because, we in America, don't want to "waste" a precious organ, if you don't have the money to keep it healthy.
The people in this story are both middle class Americans--the recipient is a naturalized citizen with three children and in a job where he's worked for over twenty nine years. He came to the United States with his family when he was five and lived for many years in San Antonio. He suffers from polycystic kidney disease. The disease killed his father when he was 58.
When we spoke last week, Jose checked his pay stub and told me he made right around $81,000 a year. But with three children and after taxes and the $343.90 a month deducted from his pay check for his health insurance, he can barely make ends meet. He owns a small home in a lower middle class section of Austin. He told me his wife sells tacos at local construction sites, to bring in a little more money.
At one point, it was the American dream, to be able to provide a modest roof for your family and children. You were supposed to be able to do this, even if God forbid, you became ill.
Take a look.
I told this very proud American that under the reform bills being negotiated, Americans at up to 400% of poverty, will be required to pay 12% of their income which comes to around $880.00 per month.This is simply an impossible financial stretch for most Americans, and my new friend confirmed this.
Jose is so damn underwater, that while he was undergoing dialysis, prior to the transplant, the dialysis center had to pay the $250.00 per quarter Medicare premiums. After he got the transplant, tragically he could no longer afford the $1000 a year to stay on Medicare and dropped it. This means that he is no longer eligible for the 36 months that Medicare pays for the life-saving immunosuppressive medications. He is fully at the mercy of his for-profit insurer. This was undoubtedly a very difficult decision, but as he said, "I didn't have the money,I had no choice."
Last month, he told me he ran out of his immunosuppresive medication. He went to the drugstore and asked the pharmacist for eight Goddamn pills to get him through the end of the month, when he would get paid and would be able to come in and make his co-pay and receive his medication. Imagine living with this sword hanging around your neck!
He barely answers the phone and puts all the mail and collection notices in a big stack because, very simply, he can't pay them.
With the great help of Nate a tech support person at Pay Pal who reads Daily Kos and knew nyceve, I was able to establish an account for Jose. If you want to throw in something, that would be great.
Imagine this, in the richest country on the planet, because our government continues to be derelict in its most fundamental duty which is to protect the American people from all enemies foreign and domestic (like the for-profit insurance industry), citizens need to take up collections on behalf of other citizens!
But this diary is not to raise money for Jose, it's really to describe the pay or die American healthcare system. Jose and Philip exemplify our nation at its finest and worst.
Here's the Jose Luis Vara, Jr. Pay Pal link:
https://www.paypal.com/...
This story is at once breathtaking from the point of view of the generosity of one human being to another, and deeply tragic because the recipient though insured, is facing financial ruin.
The take home message.Despite being insured and a citizen of the richest country on the planet, you and I are still at the mercy of an out-of-control system, which devours and destroys all but the most affluent.
I leave you with this about the great state of Maine.
The New York Times is reporting today that Olympia Snowe's Maine in in the throes of a complete health insurance breakdown. Yet, she wants a trigger!
I read things like this, and realize that the American people are being led conned and scammed by people (too numerous to list) but like Olympia Snowe, whose motives are impure at best, and more likely, just downright scum evil. I'm talkin about folks like Lieberman, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson-- and all the other fence sitters.
Gosh, I'd like these insurance industry protectors, to have a talk with Philip Knisely and Jose Luis Vara, Jr.
It has a dominant for-profit insurance carrier, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Maine, which has roughly doubled premiums in the last five years and recently appealed in court to get even higher rates.
And right now, I'm in the process of heavily downgrading my own junk insurance, and as I do this, I'm moving ever deeper into the land of the dangerously underinsured.
Why do I have to make these very unpleasant decisions? Because, like almost all Americans (except perhaps our elected representatives, with their heavily taxpayer subsidized health insurance), I was hit with a 32% rate increase and the only way to wrestle the premium down, is to move to bare bones coverage--or what we call, insurance in name only.
But my problem is minor, compared to what many Americans face. My problem is to stay healthy, because you don't want to get sick as a citizen of the richest country on the planet, even if you have insurance--just ask Jose and Philip.
Here again is the Jose Luis Vara, Jr. Pay Pal link:
https://www.paypal.com/...
PUBLIC OPTION PLEASE!