I rarely write anything involving politics. But I’m very worried about the latest challenge to the ability of Americans to find affordable healthcare.
I struggled with how to express my concerns about affording my healthcare while still maintaining my reporter’s objectivity. I struggled because I’m fortunate. I had access to a very good health insurance plan from my employer for many years. Then, not long after retirement, I became eligible for Medicare. I could also afford a secondary insurance plan to cover the 20 percent of my hospital and doctor costs that Medicare doesn’t cover. And I found a pretty good drug plan. To this point, I haven’t been slammed by serious out-of-pocket healthcare costs. But I’m worried that day may come, even for me.
A few days ago I read something by Kathy, who writes the FUMS blog. Kathy found the words that I was struggling to find because she, after working in the Washington, DC political arena for several years, quite unexpectedly fell into the healthcare sinkhole – the same healthcare hole that many of us could be pushed into one day.
Kathy has given me permission to share her blog post. It’s long, but it’s worth your time. It’s the words that I wanted to write about affording my healthcare.
Rant On US Healthcare
The headline in the Washington Post said: “Trump Administration Asks Court to Completely Invalidate Obama’s Affordable Care Act.”
I sat back with my morning coffee and thought – “what the fu**”?
Here we go again with politicians fighting over politics, each side wanting to be right, to provide the sound byte that will gain the most votes. This fight isn’t about healthcare at all. It’s about positioning.
I have a lot of experience with politics. My father was the Chief of Staff for a Congressman and my first job out of college was first on the personal staff of a Congressman, then on his subcommittee staff. Subsequently, I worked for law firms in government affairs. I saw it from both sides.
Washington was different back then. Sure there was posturing and positioning, but it was much more about doing the people’s business and putting citizen’s and their lives first. It has gotten so toxic in D.C. and the hypocrisy and partisanship has risen to a level that supersedes why we sent them there. This is a representative democracy and I don’t know about YOU – but this most certainly does not represent ME.
I will be the very first person to tell you that the ACA – the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – is not the be-all and end-all of healthcare solutions for our country. It is, however, a good start. It was even better before they started jacking around with it and broke off very important parts of it that could have made it a lot more viable.
I liken it to some horrible legislation that went into effect while I was on the Hill – “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” – which basically said to gay service members, “we won’t kick you out of the service, but don’t talk about being gay. You better stay in the closet, or you’re out of the service.” What a terrible message – but it was the first step that afforded us the opportunities that we later realized in the legalization of gay marriage among other gay rights, unimaginable when this legislation took effect.
My point being – the ACA is far from perfect – but it’s the first step to helping people. People who need help. People who are already at their most vulnerable point in life. Healthcare costs are driving people into bankruptcy. It’s making people choose between medication and eating.
When my husband’s employer decided to quit offering healthcare to their employees, we turned to the ACA. If not for that, we would have had no insurance for our family – my husband, me with MS, and two little children. It was incredibly expensive for us, but we had insurance.
And the ACA gave us all pre-existing condition exclusions, allowed children to stay on their parent’s insurance until they are 26 and stable, and provided free preventative healthcare like mammograms, colonoscopies, annual physicals, and well-child visits. It wasn’t perfect but it was progress. It was a step in the right direction.
And now this. I just don’t even know what to say about this. I am exhausted by our government showing such disregard for us.
Next week I’ll be posting the first in a series of interviews that I’ve done with MS’ers from other countries sharing their diagnosis and treatment stories. And it goes beyond the medical community, it extends to their treatment by employers in their country and even friends and family. Each one is so incredibly different than our experiences here in the U.S. it’s simply stunning. I can’t wait to share it with you. I think you’ll find it as fascinating as I do. Interestingly, the unifying thread I found throughout the interviews was the lack of stress and guilt. Our level of stress in having to worry about our healthcare costs and availability is off the charts and in fact so inherent we’re not even cognizant of it. But we’re very familiar with the result of it.
Because these people don’t have to worry about healthcare costs, they also don’t experience much of what we know so intimately here: guilt. We feel guilty because we are costing our families insane amounts of money both due to our ridiculous healthcare costs and often our inability to qualify for (at least in a timely manner) the pittance that is SSDI. This simply is not the case elsewhere – in virtually all other developed nations.
So we took a step in the right direction, to change course from whence we came – and now this. I don’t have the answers. Wish I did. But I do know that our country is not as strong as it once was, due in large part to having lost our priorities. It’s the people of this country that make it great – not a government, not corporations, not our industry. Our people. And the people in this country are struggling and being held liable for debt incurred simply by becoming ill.
We can do better. We have to. It’s going to take all of us insisting more of our employees – our elected officials. They are, after all, just that: our employees. We sent them there, we’ve given them a warning, and if they don’t straighten up – we’ll have to fire them. For our own damned good.
Sorry for the rant. Doing these interviews recently has afforded me the opportunity to have heard what it’s like to be valued by your country instead of considered a liability. And it makes me sad. And then I saw that headline.
Shaking my head. Pouring a glass of Cabernet. Resting a bit before my next round of calls to Washington.
To find YOUR representative’s contact information, click this link and type in your zip code. https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative. Then email them. Call them. Demand more of your employees.
(Featured photo by Ted Eytan via Flickr).
