My mother died because she didn't have health insurance. She was in her late fifties when all six of us grown kids were told that she had gone to the emergency room in extreme pain. The doctors and nurses didn't even need to test her blood or run a scan to diagnose her. They took one look at Lupe's yellowing eyes, one touch of her distended belly that she'd hid from us with bulky clothes and they made the correct diagnosis: fatal colon cancer. We all had the same questions we wanted answered right away: Why had she waited until tumors had grown into every organ? Why did she wait until she'd started wasting away, telling us that she just didn't feel like eating, chalking it up to her divorce from our father? We had no idea what kind of pain she was in by the time she was diagnosed with stage-four colon cancer. What sane person would not go to the doctor with her symptoms and suffering? A person who knew that going to the doctor costs money. Money that we found out she didn't have.
My Dominican-American mother was good at keeping secrets. At the time, about eight years ago, she had had just finished divorcing her second husband, our father, with whom she'd had a relationship with for over 30 years. I was the product of their affair before she'd divorced her first husband, Peter Wong, a secret she kept from everyone, including me, until death came knocking. So what do husbands have to do with health insurance? Well, in her divorce, she was able to stay on our father's medical coverage, which is normal. However, in another secret act, Lupe decided -- probably in a fit of loneliness and a quest for financial stability -- to re-marry a third time, to an old family friend. She told us afterwards. And no, even though he was a business-owner for fifty-years, her third husband did not have health insurance -- a typical scenario in the immigrant community. No matter, because they divorced a few months later (my mother had become too 'American' for his old-fashioned Latin needs) leaving my mother without medical coverage for the first time in almost 30 years.
Little did we know that Lupe had also gotten herself into substantial credit card debt. The mother of a personal finance expert wouldn't allow her daughter even a peek into her money. She knew better because she was the parent, of course. Her independent, guarded streak lead to common scenarios growing up like coming home from college discovering Lupe's eyes taped shut, leaving us kids incredulous that she didn't tell any of us that she was having cataract surgery until the bandages gave it away. Nope. We'd just worry. Don't worry.
Now we were worried. A very preventable cancer was set to kill our mother in four months or less. She had had a ticking time bomb eating away at her body, causing symptoms that would have brought any of us to the doctor, but she didn't go because it would have put her more into debt. How many other Americans are in this position? How much less would it have cost the system for her to have a colonoscopy when she was at stage one or two, or even stage three which they found the same year in her younger sister, our aunt, who survived? Fear of cost, especially for those who don't qualify for Medicaid, prevents too many of us from seeking the care we need to keep us not only alive, but well. We know that prevention pays off. In the debate over health care, I want to hear louder the cry of those who understand that we all need preventative care paid for in order to save the system billions and to make it work.
In the end, my mother did qualify for Medicaid, especially since she was too sick to work. And not only was she incredibly well taken care of (thank you state of New Hampshire and St. Joseph's Hospital in Nashua) but her doctor had the foresight and thoughtfulness to get her access to free clinical trials of a cancer-drug that kept her alive, not for the mere months that the emergency room gave her, but for two long and grateful years.
How much longer would our mother, our children's grandmother, have been with us if she had health insurance? Guadalupe Altagracias Giannotti was sixty years old.
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My husband and I, 50-something self-employed American dreamers, have insurance, but with a $10,000 per person per year deductible. It's really non-insurance that functions only to "negotiate" our medical bills to what United Healthcare would pay (which effectively means that we have to spend upwards of $40-50,000 on medical bills before the deductible is satisfied, go figure).
My husband is having a very small basal cell carcinoma (mildest form of skin cancer) removed on Monday and we expect to pay out of pocket about $2,000 - that's after paying $4,128 this year for the priviledge of having "insurance coverage."
What we're worried about is now being cancelled because of the "c" word. In fact, in showing this little cancer to a friend of his, the friend said he had a similar sore on his nose and wanted the name of my husband's dermatologist. He wanted to call her and discuss having an appointment under an assumed name so that his medical records would not show the c word as a pre-existing condition.
This country is focked.
Substantial credit card debt.
Won't talk to relatives about health or money.
Qualified for medicaid.
Won't go to emergency room until cancer at late stage.
Won't look to family for help.
It's the government's fault.
Humans are human - and quirky, and fallible. No one always acts in their own best interest - look at red state voters.
The point is, she knew she could not afford treatment, so, as MANY people do when faced with financial embarrassment, she hid the problem. She did NOT know she could qualify for Medicaid. And to go on medical "welfare" (Medicaid) is a huge embarrassment for some, as well. So it would be BAD if government finally acted in a manner that caused medical care to be more accessible to the whole populace, instead of (as in the past) to protect medical and insurance profits so that it becomes increasingly LESS accessible by the day?
Gawd, I'd hate to be related to you.
Not really.
But sadly, to others just like him.
everyone should be an individual in a nationwide actuarial pool with medicare for all, and a premium insurance policy available at a flat fee with no medical history, if people want it.
even the fascists and neo-nazis in Europe never question universal healthcare, any more than they question roads or education - it is essential for a functioning nation of any political stripe.
you are just a seriously damaged, unintelligent sociopath if you really think that this woman deserved to die because she had some debt and got married.
Chemotherapy, once again fought by the insurance company, kept her alive for two years past the date she was originally given as a prognosis, but earlier detection could have saved her life, and a considerable amount of expense. I will forever regret the original choice of jobs that placed salary above good insurance. I would trade all the material possessions I have to have her back for just a day.
I'm sorry our system lets things happen like what your mother went through, but sticking a band-aid on someone that is bleeding out in front of your eyes will probably not fix the underlying problems. You are essentially making a case for a socialized medical system, which is drastically different from mandated insurance coverage for every American.
Evidently, YES. Since she did so without prompting from her kids when she needed cataract surgery.
My point is merely that giving someone insurance doesn't address the root of the problem where people cannot afford to pay for medical care. It will help some, although it will also hurt others who will be required to pay extra for insurance they can't even afford to use. Pushing people further into poverty is not something I feel will improve health conditions.
I believe America should fix the root problems (unaffordable medical care) rather than just symptom (lacking insurance). Our politicians always seem to do as little as possible to convince people that they tried. I don't want effort, I want success.
Martin Luther King said, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane."
In virtually every other civilized nation, no one fears losing everything due to some medical catastrophe.
Our fight for equal access to healthcare for all is about democracy, human rights, civil rights, and basic human decency. WE MUST JOIN TOGETHER TO FIGHT FOR OUR CIVIL RIGHTS AND BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS. Health care is a basic human right.
Only a single-payer approach to healthcare reform will END THE INHUMANITY OF OUR FAILED HEALTHCARE INSURANCE SYSTEM, WHERE PROFITS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PATIENTS’ HEALTH, and where people die because of it.