Do you know how many tens of thousands of American expat health care refugees there are in the world today? If you don't know the answer to that question you're in good company, because no one else knows the answer to that question either, because no one will fund a study to determine their number. To which this diary suggests that this is not by accident but by design. After all who would want to read the lascivious, incestuous tale of how the American for-profit health care industry is porking its own citizens to the point of making them economic war refugees sentenced to permanent medical exile. What are the deleterious effects when you have to flee for your very life and limb due to the carnage of the for-profit health care industry? What post-traumatic stress disorder scars does that leave behind on these economic war refugees and their families, many of whom are often torn for life from their extended families, because due to pre-existing conditions they can never reside back in the US, as they are permanently medically uninsurable.
This diary asks you at the Kos community to support them. To that end everyone is invited to post on this diary if they would please, so as to raise such a shout that it will even be heard in the halls of Congress, as they consider health care reform.
[Update: August 4th 2009]
As this diary has concluded its life cycle as a recommended Kos diary, given that there are so very few informational resources on the internet for American expatriates medical refugees issues requiring health care reform, please everyone feel invited to continue to post your comments to this diary for as long as you like. The need for real health care reform takes no days off, therefore this diary will remain available to our readers and posters to help push the need for real health care reform in the United States. Thanks for your support.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant to counteract viral GOP for-profit health care propaganda.
How can GOP for-profit health care propaganda possibly ever explain untold tens of thousands of American expat health care refugees and their families permanently exiled in foreign countries, because due to pre-existing conditions they are permanently uninsurable and may never reside in the US again, short of turning 65 and being eligible for Medicare. Clearly the for-profit health insurance industry views American expat health care refugees and their families as being an acceptable cost of doing business. Particularly when there are never any comprehensive studies funded that can provide hard data and hard numbers of the plight of these families. Axiomatically speaking this clearly affords the for-profit health care industry and their surrogates an opportunity to promote their brand of sophistry, wherein essentially speaking they're able to spin the phenomenon of American expat medical refugees, as being nothing more than people exercising a social choice to leave the US. That's why this diary asks its readers to write to their members of Congress, to for the first time ever through the State Dept initiate a voluntary study, when people come in to have their US passports renewed, that would identify them as American medical refugees. So that their status as American medical refugees could for the first time ever be factored into the Congressional health care reform debate, both now and in the future.
Why should federal taxpayer dollars be used to study the phenomenon of American health care refugees?
The answer is simple, and the answer quite simply is this, it is because truth matters. The American people deserve to know the truth about what is happening to our fellow citizens, that is so traumatic, so egregious that it sends our fellow citizens literally to flee the United States in order to escape from the ravages of the robber baron for-profit health care industry, which after threatening them with the loss of life and limb, threatens to bankrupt their families who are left behind. Sometimes it doesn't threaten the breadwinner directly, but the spouse and children. The American people deserve to know how many adult children as medical refugees are separated from their parents and how many grandchildren are separated from their grandparents, and the post traumatic stress disorder and other deleterious effects that this inflicts on these American families, as a cost of the for-profit health insurance industry doing business. When we consider the social costs that the for-profit health insurance industry exacts on the American people, in the halls of Congress when considering health care reform shouldn't we consider Americans who due simply to their medical conditions are forced to live abroad, and due to pre-existing conditions are permanently uninsurable, and therefore unable to ever reside in the US again short of turning 65 and being eligible for Medicare, without meaningful medical reform. Aren't these legitimate questions that may be raised in a democracy? If you agree with that statement please feel invited to post your comments on this diary because your opinion matters.
The simple truth we as a people in America are socialized to step over the medically uninsured and the medically uninsurable.
As such why should we care about American expat medical refugees? The short answer is because you and your family could be next. For everyone who thinks it can't happen to them, there is someone who this has happened to already, which leaves us with the question of who will be next? Is there medical security for anyone under the unbridled avarice of the robber baron for-profit American medical system. So it is if you are an American expat whose family has been sent into medical exile, please post here and tell us how you feel. If you're an American whose interested in the phenomenon of American medical refugees as a subset of a broken American health care system, please feel invited to post your questions and comments here.
This writer's empirical experience of over 2 decades of living in Europe is I have met dozens and dozens of families whose only hope of going back to the States is when they turn 65 and become eligible for Medicare, because otherwise they are uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions. It is these pre-existing conditions that prevent them from being eligible for medical insurance, and this prevents from residing in the US ever again short of turning 65 and being eligible for Medicare. You might ask tell me again why is that important to me? Well another reason it's important to you is because the majority of American bankruptcies occur because of medical expenses in America today. Unlike fine wines this problem will not get better with time, indeed it will get worse. Finally there is the axiomatic notion that universal medical access systems abroad do not prevent people from becoming insured due to pre-existing conditions. As such isn't the phenomenon of American expat refugees and their families one more reason why the US Congress should enact immediate medical reforms. If we are to win the fight for medical reform don't we need to use every legitimately available tool and argument in order to prevail against the for-profit health insurance industry. As such shouldn't we view the plight of American expat medical refugees as yet one more important tool in our toolbox working for badly need medical reforms in America.
PS: I'd like to give one of our posters by the screen name of pale cold to this diary credit for finding this video below, which tells the very human story about medically exiled Americans living in Canada - who can't come back to the United States to live due to medical pre-existing conditions, which prevent them from getting health insurance.
PS: Reader's update:
Please note subsequent to this diary being published the Huffington Post
wrote a piece entitled "Private Health Care is Stranding US Expats Overseas"
which links to the diary that you're now reading. As such that
Huffington Post piece and this diary are the only print sources I've ever
been able to find of the phenomenon of American expats being medically
exiled outside of the US. Also please note that the video was made by a
global expat suppporter, whom I'd like to acknowledge with a word of
thanks for the efforts of her and her family in bringing this important
issue to light. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say we wish them all
the best in the future. Thank you for reading this diary update, and I'd
also like to offer a word of thanks for the Huffington Post for their
efforts of bringing this important seldomly discussed issue to light.
I encourage you to bookmark this diary, email it to a friend and share it
on Facebook. I also encourage you to contact your member of Congress
regarding the issues raised in this diary. America needs health care reform now!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
(The above link is to the Huffington Post article previously mentioned entitled "Private Health Care is Stranding US Expats Overseas."