I did not spend Labor Day Weekend celebrating a day off from work. I spent it regretting that every day from here on will be a day off until things turn around.
On Friday, I was fired from my job. Or more accurately, I was originally given a contract to work for one year, and after the year was up, the powers that be decided not to renew the contract. I suppose we can dress it up that way, but the end result is still the same -- I'm unemployed. I worked very hard for a year, but I guess they decided I was not a good fit for them. I wasn't even given a two-weeks notice. And now, I'm just one of 14.9 million Americans who are out of work.
I had been working for a small business who contracts out services to Big Pharma, working as an epidemiologist. Since Big Pharma is one of a handful of institutions that's been at the center of controversy over the health care reform debate, let me disclose that I never once worked with, or had any contact with, a commercial, business, or sales team within the industry. I didn't make any of the company's drugs, nor did I work on any clinical trials -- although I did do some support work for a couple of different disease area teams that were trying to develop some novel medications for musculoskeletal conditions and infectious diseases. By "support work," I mean drafting literature reviews on geographic distribution of certain diseases over time and researching background incidence/prevalence rates.
If you asked me if I felt guilty about working (albeit indirectly) for Big Pharma, my answer is "yes and no." I am strongly in favor of a public option, I am disgusted with how some of the higher-ups in the industry have bankrolled an astroturfing campaign, and I have always thought the industry's supposed backroom deal with the White House was shady at best and extortion at its worst. I will also not argue against the fact that one of the pharmaceutical industry's main goal is to make profits, and have at times marketed some very dangerous drugs (thalidomide, for example) at the expense of other people's health.
But on the other hand, this was my first full-time job out of graduate school and I had bills to pay. I was not paid an exorbitant salary by any stretch, and I never once cared about Big Pharma's profits. I considered myself an impartial researcher whose main focus was to report the most accurate scientific evidence available. Again, though I did not work on any clinical trials, my personal philosophy was simple: If the drug was not working, or the health risks involved with taking it outweighed the benefits, it shouldn't go to market. Period.
The real reason I feel guilty is because I worked for a year in a job I found to be mostly dull and boring. I woke up each day not particularly wanting to go to a job I did not find interesting, so to be honest, there's a part of me that's relieved. In a way, you could say it's a good thing I was let go. I'm aware that a lot of people in this country don't have the luxury of holding what they consider to be their dream job, and have much more dire financial circumstances than I do (at the moment). I'm still pretty young (almost 26) and am not desperate right now, and still have time to get back on my feet. I would one day like to be a teacher, perhaps at a local college, but I'll get to that at another time.
The bottom line of this diary, however, has nothing to do with asking for pity or discussing the evils of Big Pharma. It does, however, have everything to do with health care.
What really frightens me is that now, I'm at a loss for what I'm going to do without health insurance. While I had a job, I did have decent health coverage, though even then I still had to pay in for the plan with the most expensive premiums. It was the only way I could get a plan that could cover a colonoscopy -- my second one in four years. In a few years, I'm going to have to get regular prostate exams because my father had prostate cancer before the age of 65.
A month prior to the colonoscopy, I decided to get a consultation with the surgeon who would be performing it. My former insurance company, in its grand infinite wisdom, denied my claim to cover the consult. This appointment didn't involve any exams or complicated procedures of any sort. It was a five-minute chat with a surgeon. All he did was have me fill out a medical history form, and I got an appointment for the colonoscopy. I'll let you take a guess how much I was charged just to talk with a surgeon for five minutes.
Still wondering? I'll tell you: $200. Nope, I'm not kidding. I could have gotten exactly the same service over the phone, and paid 1/200th the price. And do you know why my insurance company denied my claim? Because it was deemed a "pre-existing condition," based entirely on the fact that they removed a polyp from me during my first colonoscopy.
So now, I'm worried as hell that tomorrow I might get into a car accident and not have a damn way of paying for the hospital bill. In all likelihood, I'm going to have to apply for COBRA, which I can afford for at least a few months, but what if I can't land another job for a long time? COBRA is a lot more expensive than the plan I had during employment. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? A health care system that charges you MORE for health insurance when you don't have a job, than it does when you do.
This is why a public option is of the utmost importance to me, even more so than when I was employed. It may offer me and millions of other Americans the chance for a plan that provides quality health care at an affordable price, unlike private insurance companies which profit from raising the cost of care and denying people like me the coverage we need. And yet, even now, I keep reading again and again about how Democrats in Congress and our President are considering a "trigger" for the public option. I suppose getting a public option, say, two years from now is better than never getting it at all.....but seriously, how many expensive medical procedures am I going to have to endure from private insurance before the government finally gets it? How much am I going to have to let insurance companies shake me down before I can't afford it anymore? How many other Americans are going to lose their jobs, and lose their coverage, before the Democrats in Congress finally wake up and do what we elected them to do? And if there is a so-called "trigger," how do we know when it will come into effect?
When he makes his speech tomorrow night, I humbly ask that President Obama declare the public option a necessity for health care reform, not just for my own need, but the needs of millions of other Americans who cannot afford health care in a broken health care system. I also ask that he call for the public option not a couple years from now, but NOW. This should not even be a matter of Democrats vs. Republicans, or appeasing Blue Dogs or insurance lobbyists. There shouldn't even be a debate -- with thousands of people dropped from insurance every single day, it should be obvious how unacceptable our current system is. This should be about helping Americans of all stripes, and yet Congress and the media have sadly let this whole "debate" devolve into screaming matches at town halls and deranged lies about "death panels" and "fascism," all at my expense and the expense of everyone else who cannot afford insurance. I'm tired of being treated like a number -- the pharmaceutical industry did that to me, and my insurance company did that to me, so I'm looking for real change and I'm looking for it now.
Thanks for listening.