The cost of living
Qualifier
The American healthcare system overhaul has been a topic of great debate recently. I’m certain that many people have weighed in on the various aspects. But I’m not many people. I’m a single person with unique issues and experiences. (I have so many issues I could offer subscriptions. Ba-dump-ching!) I’m putting some links at the end of this where you can read some stories about the issue.
Rant
If you have any experience with the US healthcare industry, you know that it both sucks and blows. Part of the downside to a free market and capitalism is that everything is for sale and nothing is given. The way the system has worked me is this: I’m in my early forties; I had a decent job and was a contributing member of society; and I had a stroke. Now, I’m eyeball deep in debt, struggling to get back into the workforce, and working to overcome a few new disabilities. No, I’m not retarded and luckily I’m not all that damaged. If you were to meet me now, you’d probably never notice anything that made me look like a stroke survivor.
Anyway …
I was really lucky. I’d been working for years and had amassed a decent amount of state-funded disability credit. (It’s not freaking welfare, fer christsakes, I’ve paid into that fund my whole life and then I got to get some back. Go me.) I’d just finished up a gig at an advertising company and was on COBRA from a minimal-medical coverage deal. It wasn’t great, but it was something. Then the disability money got tight so I stopped paying for the COBRA coverage, and then it turned out that because of my (say it with me now) preexisting condition, I couldn’t get health insurance. I talked to a specialist and he said that there were a couple of companies who might cover me, but it wouldn’t cover the one thing that was likely to put me in danger, it would cost more than $500 per month, and it would max out at about $75K annually. Just for reference, my initial two days in the ER and subsequent eight days in the hospital rang in at just over $100K – not counting all the weird little bills that you get from, say, the lady who wheeled my bed from one room to the other, or the one who tapped my veins every day at 6am. Those cost extra.
So I became the master of financial assistance forms. I have paperwork of biblical proportions for all the places where I could apply. And some of the bills started to go away. Others went to collections, but since I own nothing, I have nothing to take or put a lien on, so the debt collectors just lined up in the “do not answer” category on my phone. I even made a couple laugh when I actually did answer and told them “blood from a turnip; get in line.” I’ve always thought that there was no one more free than the person with nothing to lose. It’s definitely an attitude that’s helped.
I did get to tap into my social security fund – now that’s something! Everyone says that by the time my generation gets to retirement, the social security fund will have dried up. The joke’s on them because all you need to do is have a near-death experience and you can get those dollars back today. Since I was on disability, and applying for financial aid at every hospital, most hospital administrators said I was a shoe-in for Medi-Cal (that’s Medicare or Medicaid in the rest of the country, but in CA, we’ve got our own little bureaucracy). But my helpful case worker at our local office said that I made too much money on disability to quality for Medi-Cal. To qualify for the complete coverage, you have to make less than $600 per month. A year later, she amended her statement to say that while I didn’t qualify for no-cost coverage, I might qualify for partial coverage. But she’d have to figure out what that might be and she’d get back to me once she’d crunched the numbers. I’m still waiting. I do give her voicemail a call once a month to make sure she’s not dead, but so far, nothing.
The real pisser is that if I was under 18 or over 65, before my societal usefulness had started or after it was over, I would quality for complete coverage. I read a really inspiring story while hanging out in some waiting room about a five year-old boy who had been on life support for four years, completely funded by Medi-Cal. This thing, that had never established itself as a fucking person, was getting a full ride for a life that hadn’t even started. Oooooo – talking about that will get my pulse racing (which is good, really, because I need the blood shooting through my arteries really fast to avoid those pesky clots – the doctor says lots of salt is good, too).
But wait, there’s more.
One of the hospitals rejected my financial assistance request because my disability payments were $10 over the allowed margin of error. HealthySF, a local program, denied me coverage because I’m on federal disability so, they say, I should be getting Medi-Cal. Are you sensing a theme here? It’s one of frustration, and I’ve often thought that death would have been easier (don’t worry, I already have the world’s smallest violin, and I’ll definitely turn it up). My frustration is echoed again and again in friends and family, each with health and financial problems. Lara and I were having cocktails the other week and I suggested we should start a “damaged girls” club. A once-a-month meeting to get drunk, bitch about our stuff, and swap ideas and resources.
It can’t rain all the time
I keep living because I have the hippie husband and the wonderful grandma and a few friends that make the living worth doing. And though the last 19 months have been a nonstop laugh riot, I have something to live for and someone to do it with. After the stroke , most of my regular doctors agreed to see me pro-bono or for a discount until I could get back on track. Dr. Quintana, who I met the day after the second stroke (the first time they’d finally correctly diagnosed me) said he’d continue my treatment at no charge (which turned out to be not quite true, though he has talked a heart-monitor company into letting me use their service and equipment gratis). Wendy, my therapist, from whom I’d graduated, started seeing me again, weekly and for free, to help me through the rough patches. And I graduated again. People really did step up and help, and most of them are still my friends today. Which rocks.
For more opinions and news, check these out:
- Michael Tomasky is an editor of Guardian America – he has a bunch of posts relating to the recent healthcare activity – on the GuardianUKs site: Michael Tomasky’s blo
- Catherine Arnst is a senior writer for BusinessWeek. Here’s what she has to say about how much more we spend and how much less we get compared to other countries.
- The Washington Post website has a whole section dedicated to following the story. Who doesn’t trust the Post?
- If you don’t trust the Washington Post, maybe you’ll like The New York Times better. Here’s one from them.
- For balance, let’s let the right check in. Here’s Ryan Ellis’ point of view.
- And who can forget the religious folks? You know they have stuff to say.