You are Blessed
I have a rant building inside of me. I've done a decent job of biting my tongue, but I need to let this out, so don't hate. Today hearing that our awesome California leaders have chosen to cut the Healthy Families medical coverage plan, thus leaving HUNDREDS of Californians UNINSURED, my head is going to explode if I don't say something.
You are SO LUCKY if
1) your job provides your family health insurance
2) you have not been laid off
3) you have been laid off BUT could afford the $1300 a month COBRA payments.
4) could not afford the COBRA payments but COULD afford independent health coverage & had no pre-existing conditions
5 you applied for health insurance and you were NOT DENIED
6) HAVE said coverage, and were not rated up for various prescription medication, or just periodically had your premiums raised to the point you could no longer afford your premiums.
Were you aware that our top notch doctors that practice here in the States are going to leave all their practices and head off to other industrialized countries so they can practice medicine in a country that doesn't have government...oh...wait... THAT'S right. We are the ONLY INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY WITHOUT A GOVERNMENT HEALTH PLAN!
ARGHH!! Are you aware we have been paying for medical care for our citizens who are not covered for DECADES?! Jesus, just step into an emergency room here in my hood and you'd think you'd walked into your general practitioner's office.
This is who it will help.
I have a friend who is a mother of 5. She is the SOLE "bread winner" in her family. Her job provides health insurance for her and her family. She is 30 years old and has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She just went through a procedure where 90% of her lymph nodes were scraped. Yeah, good times. Okay, so she's now beginning her chemo & radiation treatments. She can't work because she is so sick. She can't afford the COBRA payments because she isn't working, can't work and her husband makes about $5000 a year as a carpenter. Yeah, that's not gonna cut it, is it? So, should she be lucky enough to find an independent policy that she could afford you think she wouldn't be denied?! So, here's a woman who's fighting the fight of her life and will not have medical insurance. So, what does she do? Get treatment, declare bankruptcy? Because we all know that declaring bankruptcy has no impact on our economy... (sarcasm)
Oh, Oh! AND who's heard the stories of the insurance companies REFUSING TO PAY for cancer treatments? Want to hear about Mark's battle with insurance companies (not doctors, mind you) to get treatment for his daughter who has cancer? Or the insurance company who refused to cover the organ transplant for the 15 year old girl out here in California who's doctors joined in the fight against the insurance company?
I just feel we are called to help our fellow man. Are all men created equal? Aren't we all God's children? I thought so. But not if your an immigrant, uninsured, gay, transgender... (okay, that's a blog for another day)
I see this as sort of the "Energy Star Appliance". Expensive at first, but pays for itself after 5 years. Do we want to pay now to save later? We've already been paying. Maybe if we can get people into the doctor BEFORE it tuns into an expensive treatment.... maybe if we can free up our emergency rooms so that the doctors are free to work on, well, EMERGENCIES.
Look, I don't think Universal Health Care is the perfect solution, but I truly feel it's a step forward. My Mom could fill a novel on what it's like to try to provide care to her uninsured clients. Who ended up dying painful, horrible deaths from cancer and infection on the streets because they were kicked out of medical facilities due to lack of insurance.
There are so many myths floating around about what Universal Health Care will "do to our country". I don't think AARP's magazine is full of liberal propaganda, but there's a great article debunking a lot of these myths. (Yes, I read AARP because I'm married to an old man, and they have interesting articles) I'll try to find it online and link it.
My husband and I can barely afford the shitty medical policy we have. They have rated us up every two months since January, and if they continue to rate us up, we will not be able to afford coverage. The kid's policies are less expensive, but they suck, and when I took Theo to the emergency room with an asthma attack, I was still stuck with a $495 bill.
So during these times when we are not covered by the union, I'd love to have a fallback option.
And I'd love for you all to have a fallback option as well.
Blame my parents for making me so fucking compassionate.
You are SO LUCKY if
1) your job provides your family health insurance
2) you have not been laid off
3) you have been laid off BUT could afford the $1300 a month COBRA payments.
4) could not afford the COBRA payments but COULD afford independent health coverage & had no pre-existing conditions
5 you applied for health insurance and you were NOT DENIED
6) HAVE said coverage, and were not rated up for various prescription medication, or just periodically had your premiums raised to the point you could no longer afford your premiums.
Were you aware that our top notch doctors that practice here in the States are going to leave all their practices and head off to other industrialized countries so they can practice medicine in a country that doesn't have government...oh...wait... THAT'S right. We are the ONLY INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY WITHOUT A GOVERNMENT HEALTH PLAN!
ARGHH!! Are you aware we have been paying for medical care for our citizens who are not covered for DECADES?! Jesus, just step into an emergency room here in my hood and you'd think you'd walked into your general practitioner's office.
This is who it will help.
I have a friend who is a mother of 5. She is the SOLE "bread winner" in her family. Her job provides health insurance for her and her family. She is 30 years old and has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. She just went through a procedure where 90% of her lymph nodes were scraped. Yeah, good times. Okay, so she's now beginning her chemo & radiation treatments. She can't work because she is so sick. She can't afford the COBRA payments because she isn't working, can't work and her husband makes about $5000 a year as a carpenter. Yeah, that's not gonna cut it, is it? So, should she be lucky enough to find an independent policy that she could afford you think she wouldn't be denied?! So, here's a woman who's fighting the fight of her life and will not have medical insurance. So, what does she do? Get treatment, declare bankruptcy? Because we all know that declaring bankruptcy has no impact on our economy... (sarcasm)
Oh, Oh! AND who's heard the stories of the insurance companies REFUSING TO PAY for cancer treatments? Want to hear about Mark's battle with insurance companies (not doctors, mind you) to get treatment for his daughter who has cancer? Or the insurance company who refused to cover the organ transplant for the 15 year old girl out here in California who's doctors joined in the fight against the insurance company?
I just feel we are called to help our fellow man. Are all men created equal? Aren't we all God's children? I thought so. But not if your an immigrant, uninsured, gay, transgender... (okay, that's a blog for another day)
I see this as sort of the "Energy Star Appliance". Expensive at first, but pays for itself after 5 years. Do we want to pay now to save later? We've already been paying. Maybe if we can get people into the doctor BEFORE it tuns into an expensive treatment.... maybe if we can free up our emergency rooms so that the doctors are free to work on, well, EMERGENCIES.
Look, I don't think Universal Health Care is the perfect solution, but I truly feel it's a step forward. My Mom could fill a novel on what it's like to try to provide care to her uninsured clients. Who ended up dying painful, horrible deaths from cancer and infection on the streets because they were kicked out of medical facilities due to lack of insurance.
There are so many myths floating around about what Universal Health Care will "do to our country". I don't think AARP's magazine is full of liberal propaganda, but there's a great article debunking a lot of these myths. (Yes, I read AARP because I'm married to an old man, and they have interesting articles) I'll try to find it online and link it.
My husband and I can barely afford the shitty medical policy we have. They have rated us up every two months since January, and if they continue to rate us up, we will not be able to afford coverage. The kid's policies are less expensive, but they suck, and when I took Theo to the emergency room with an asthma attack, I was still stuck with a $495 bill.
So during these times when we are not covered by the union, I'd love to have a fallback option.
And I'd love for you all to have a fallback option as well.
Blame my parents for making me so fucking compassionate.
posted by Ramblings of a crazed SAHM at 8:31 PM
6 Comments:
Nice post, kel. And I don't want to counterargue this rant, because I don't think that's the point of the post. I have had the fancy-schmancy insurance, had to come up with the money for Cobra, had the kids on Medicaid and remained uninsured, not been able to afford the Company plan, and so on. I, too, have experienced this in many ways.
I know you have, too. And I know both you and I have done our research.
But I worry about the people who think that Universal Coverage is the cure-all for the problems. Because it's not. And quite possibly, like in so many countries with government plans, people denied treatment for this or that reason won't be eliminated - it quite possibly will just shift. Shift to the elderly, maybe, or the ones deemed 'unsaveable'. Then the stories on our blogrants will be about our grandparents who were denied cancer treatment, our parents denied joint replacement, and so on.
And having a father who batted back from the LITERAL brink of death twice, surviving both a cancer and a colon perforation that nobody thought he would or should? Well, I can't help but wonder what would have happened had he gotten his cancer diagnosis under a government run plan, you know?
That is one of the MYTHS Sue, that everything is going to change under a Government plan and "we" are all going to get screwed. (I have to find that article) What it is going to do is actually provide care to patients that don't have coverage.
What this is hopefully do is help people get preventative care, so that things don't escalate.
And I have numerous friends that live in other countries: Canada, Germany, Lithuania, France, England, Ireland... all of which have government run programs. I received treatment in Lithuania when I split my chin open, and I think they did just as fine of a job as a top notch plastic surgeon would have done here. (Not that it would have been covered, here, of course) and 4 of my friends had to move back to Canada to get their child into a treatment program because they would not have been able to have afforded it otherwise.
I don't agree that it's a myth, and I didn't say we would all get screwed. What I said is that problems will shift. There will STILL be an underserved population, no matter what the system. And, like now, there will be people making decisions about who gets a particular treatment and who doesn't. And that isn't a myth.
I can rattle off people from all over the world, too, who hold my opinion. Like you, I have friends and family in a lot of high and low places. My friend who grew up in France, and who is now an American citizen and who has brought more than one relative here for care. And so on.
My point is simply that for every problem that is seemingly solved, another will appear. And for the people who don't fully understand that, who don't take the time to learn more than a soundbite, they could be in for a very rude awakening. People very readily say "I know Universal Healthcare won't solve everything, but it's got to be better than this," but when we try to discuss what could go unsolved, or examine what problems could potentially be CREATED, then we're perpetuating myth? I don't buy that.
Preach it KellyB. I came *this* close to coming completely and totally unhinged on someone's ass yesterday on this issue.
"My friends and I don't know anyone without health insurance."
BULLFEATHERS. I don't. Jill doesn't. There's two. I have COBRA. Until December. Unless the Mr. gets job before then. A "real job" not a contracted job.
And since the major employer here in the Capitol City is The Late Great State of California.... well, it's a tough go of being employed these days.
People die waiting for care every. single. day. in the good ol' USofA. Waiting for the insurance company (who certainly isn't BETTER than "the government" in deciding who does and doesn't get treatment) to approve their treatment, or simply waiting for the doctor to get to them.
And that doesn't even touch those who's closest medical facility is 100+ miles away because not enough people in their area have insurance to make medicine profitable enough.
Sorry. I'll stop now...
NancyD.
Great post.
I have many family members abroad -- in at least a half a dozen countries, with various medical ailments. They've never had problems with the level of care they've received.
I'm always shocked that with so many other countries with proven track records, why there are still so many naysayers of national healthcare. People are suffering terribly -- could it really get any worse?
I don't believe there will every be "THE" solution to our health care crisis. (God, I didn't even begin to discuss the problems with the Mental Health care in this country) This is because there IS no perfect solution. It is easy for me to say "Universal Health Care is better than what we have now". I realize that, perhaps, I'm thinking mostly of those without money (like myself). We are being "rated up" every 2 months. Right now, we pay just under $1000 a month for crappy insurance coverage. So, I am at risk of losing all coverage due to the affordability. This was the cheapest policy when I applied.
I worry about Valerie (My friend in my post). Who is going to cover her? She has stage 4 cancer.
Another friend of mine, Donna, she applied to HMO, PPO, Kaiser, BCBS, Healthnet and was denied by every one of them.
It's situations like mine, like theirs, like everyone's MIGHT be someday that make me long for optional healthcare coverage.
Because right now, I'm looking to see if my Grandmother being 100% Canadian will be enough for me to claim citizenship so I can go there and get my PAP smear. (Okay, so that was a slight exaggeration)
We will ALWAYS find stories and people that support or negate our opinions, which is why there will never be the perfect solution because my perfect and your perfect are totally different, and my concerns and fears are different than yours.
Well, I think I DO have the perfect solution. Let's live in a WORLD where we do away with money. There will be no need for money anywhere in the world. Everyone will just do what they love to do, for free. (But, I guess I already do that since I "do" theatre. LOL!)
Thanks gals for letting me rant. Sue, I love you and respect you and love that you always state your views so eloquently. They really need a voice like yours on conservative radio because I might actually listen. (I'll probably still disagree, but I'd listen. :-) That screamer the other day about put me over the edge. MWAH!)
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