While the health care debate may seem to be something that affects just over 10 percent of the population, the reality is different. The problem is that by the time most people realize that, it may be too late.
Most Americans get their health insurance through their employer, Medicare, or traditional Medicaid. But there is also a sizable percentage of Americans forced to purchase insurance on the individual health insurance market. The Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) exchanges made these insurance policies worth the paper they were written on. For many, these exchanges presented an affordable alternative, especially when coupled with the Medicaid expansion accepted by states who cared about their citizens.
Since coming into office, Donald Trump and his administration have been sabotaging the Affordable Care Act. They've cut advertising and outreach aimed at encouraging people to sign up for Obamacare. Trump continues to threaten cost-sharing payments to insurance companies, which will increase premiums by more than 20 percent. The Medicaid cuts that most Republican Party leaders are pushing will kill many—and people in red states will be impacted the most.
There are several reasons the health care debate remains unresolved in America. The first is the sea of corporate-driven misinformation designed to mislead Americans into supporting a system that further puts them in debt and transfers their disposable income to insurance companies, drug companies, and other stakeholders in the healthcare industry.
The second reason is our inability to give sufficient exposure to personalized stories. One of the biggest obstacles is that much of the time, health care is conceptual—it isn't something that’s used or even thought about very often. But no one knows when they will get a chronic disease or suffer an accident. When one is forced to view their vulnerability or even their mortality through someone that they can identify with, it becomes more real.
I met Eleanor Goldfield a few years ago at a Move to Amend (MTA) conference in Washington, DC. We were in the same empty conference room. She is a well-known activist in progressive circles. Goldfield was setting up to interview a few members of the organization for Free Speech TV. She got my attention when I overheard her discussing white privilege with another white person. It was like she was echoing an interesting article I had read at the Huffington Post many years past. I knew then she was more than your weekend activist shouting out politically correct slogans. I interviewed her that night.
What I did not know then was that Goldfield, a young millennial, was going through a health ordeal. She was amiable and at the same time hard-hitting about our political system, income and wealth inequality, racial, social and criminal justice, and the environment.
Eleanor had also recently been diagnosed with cancer. No one had a clue.
As I was reading my Facebook feed last week while at the airport in Washington, I saw the following post from Eleanor.
I always wanted long hair - still do.
But when cancer says f$ck your long hair, I say #f$ckcancer and also - I'll take a badass jagged new do from @codyferro
#makelemonade #newdo
**Note: I'm in remission so no need to panic. You'll all be stuck with me for quite a long while yet :)
A few days later I sent her a message in an attempt to find out what was going on. I told her that I thought many would benefit from hearing her story. After all, as a member of the invincible generation, her story would help in many ways. It would cauterize in the psyche of many, especially millennials, that they are not immune to illness—even in their youth. It would make the participation of many who are currently on the sidelines of the health care debate more urgent. It would change the myth of who benefits from Medicaid.
Goldfield agreed to a Skype interview and appeared on my radio show Politics Done Right on Thursday.
She pointed out many of the flaws in our health care system. She is on Medicaid, in part because as she explained, "There is not a lot of money in trying to save the world." She did not do well with chemotherapy. It made her feel that instead of killing her cancer it was killing her. Worse, it was not working. She chose an alternative treatment and even though that regimen put her in remission she has to pay for it out of pocket, because it was not a treatment that was sanctioned by health insurance and drug companies.
Goldfield said that the current health care debate and the possibility of losing Medicaid are stressful. Without Medicaid, she would not be able to cover her monthly and sometimes weekly visits to her doctor. She said her oncologist made her fill out a stress diary, given that stress can increase the growth of cancer cells.
But she is not letting her ordeal deter her from her activism. After all, in the times of Trump one cannot rest on one's laurels. She has written the new book titled Paradigm Lost. She describes it as follows:
Political poetry intertwined with powerful activist art.
We have adapted to greed, consumerism, hate, injustice, war, destruction and sociopathy. Adaptation has kept us alive for millennia – and now it is killing us. We need a shift, a 99% lift – we need to lose the view that things are inherently awful and we can’t do anything about it.
We need to stop manufacturing consent and start manufacturing dissent – by the boat load, ship it out like Amazon knick knacks – from sea to shining sea and back again. We need hope – without optimism. We need to feel inspired. Art can, poetry can. Through our emotions, building the notions that we can – can Do Something
Eleanor blogs at ArtKillingApathy.com.
When Americans—young, old, and from every socioeconomic background—realize that they could find themselves on the losing end of our health care system, they will supersede the will of the medical industrial complex, which is just another wealth-stealing arm of the plutocracy. Maybe then we will force the only practical solution to our health care problem: single-payer Medicare for all.