This is sick

I have health insurance. The quality of care overall seems to suck, I have to fight and push to get anything other than a pat on the head, but I have it. It costs me $515 a month, which I as a freelancer pay for entirely by myself.

I'm 49 years old and have no pre-existing conditions or chronic diseases. I had my gall bladder out more than a decade ago, and my tonsils out when I was 5; those are all the surgeries I've had in my life. So that number is not based on my personal medical history. It's just what it costs.

And since I currently have the flu, yes, I'm thinking about how hard it is to go to the medical center when I'm feeling sick, to go through the aggravating bureaucracy to get an appointment, check in, see the doctor who never looks up from her little computer to examine me, just reads me the questions, types in my responses, then waits until her machine tells her what to do next, then gives me a stack of paperwork for all the tests she wants me to have done in other buildings, some at other times, half or more of which are just my "annual maintenance" stuff like my PAP smear and mammogram and have nothing to do with why I'm there that day, all of which require me to go, in person, to various other buildings and departments, stand in line, schedule an appointment or be told to just come in and take my chances as they don't make appointments.

All, let me repeat, when I'm sick.

But none of that is anything compared to what a friend of mine is currently going through. She has two diagnosed life-threatening chronic diseases. She is employed. She has no insurance. She gets no health care except now and then, when things get really bad, a local physician who knows her gives her minimal care and bills her, knowing it will be a long time before he gets paid, if he ever does. And since the labs don't offer the same deal, she can rarely get any kind of medical testing done, not even to monitor her health conditions.

Is there care available of which she doesn't avail herself, some form of assistance? Possibly, but when you're severely, painfully, chronically ill, it's kind of hard to find the time or energy to finish working a low-paid, demoralizing dead end job 40+ hours a week, and then try to batter at the doors of the government and private charities, finding some constellation of services that will cover the patchwork of needs you have, especially if you make more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which means if you make more than $20K a year.

Today on Daily Kos I read this piece, and it made me break down in tears. For my friend; for my own stupid, insignificant whining complaints about how very very tedious it is to stand in line and snap at my doctor to look up from her fucking computer screen and examine me; for the dreams I had a long time ago that one day this country would pull its head out of the health insurance/HMO industry's ass and realize universal health care isn't optional in a civilized nation, it's fundamental; for the fact that my friend ended up in the hospital last year because of lack of care, resulting in a $40K+ bill that the government picked up, and that's supposed to be a better thing than just giving her free basic care in the first place.

And for another friend of mine, who had care for the last few years simply by virtue of the fact that she falsified her address to qualify for COBRA, refusing to even acknowledge that if she ever put in a big claim she'd probably be investigated and denied coverage, and when I told her that I believed in universal coverage, looked shocked and said, "But then we'll have rationed care!"

And I look around and think, right. Wow. Even I, who spend more than six thousand bucks a year on health insurance, am getting rationed care. Something like 50 million Americans get none at all, the ultimate rationing.

A friend in Australia asked me, bewildered, last night how things got this way in this country. I babbled on for a while about the military-industrial complex and the health insurance industry and corruption in both parties, and cronyism, and lobbyists, and money and power and influence.

And although she still seemed bewildered, because I'm am American and I guess she presumed it made some kind of sense if I thought it did, even though she herself couldn't quite see it.

Do you want to know the truth? I really don't get it. Not at all.

Comments

[Lori]

I've got to say...I don't get it either. The biggest super-power in the world doesn't provide the most basic necessities for it's citizens. I fail to see the American Dream in that.
I'm Canadian and we have universal health care which I value greatly. Depending on which province you're in and how much your annual income is determines how much you pay for it (we're a family of 3, $80k gross annually) and only pay $900 per year which we certainly have no complaints about.
Don't get me wrong...it's becoming two-tier care. Stream 1 encompasses the vast majority of Canadians and Stream 2 is comprised of all of the wealthy folks who can afford to pay out of pocket to get faster service at a private facility. Again, this is fine with me...every person who steps out of the general line to go to a private facility allows the general population to get standardized care more quickly.
The USA is an amazing place...but I would never leave Canada for this one very important reason...(nearly) free health care.

[Lisa]

I've commented here before about my adventures with insurers while being treated for cancer. I *have* insurance--and still I have had to spend inordinate amounts of time simply begging for help. I *have* insurance--and still I have had to use retirement funds to pay for a second round of major surgeries. My situation is serious, but it is not as serious as that of the millions of Americans who have no health insurance. I am left with this question: If the state cannot care for its citizens when they are at their most vulnerable, who needs the state?

[Leanne]

Okay seriously, are you telling me they don't even examine you properly when you finally do work up the nerve to GO to a doctor? And then they send you off to do all that other unrelated crap? The mind boggles.

[Christie]

That is exactly what happens. Another friend of mine who has this flu I have dragged herself to the doctor today, and basically got blown off. That's what I mean: The care is crap. And I have good insurance. But OMG don't put universal health care in place because then we'll get crap care.

HELLO.