I'm the Poster Child for Public Healthcare

I am a poster child for public health. Why do I say this? Because I live in a state where there is a low-income, public healthcare option. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was able to utilize this option for my treatment. It worked, and it worked extremely well.

Uninsured and unemployed after job-hunting for over a year in late 2006, I discovered a lump in my breast. The lump turned out to be benign, but the mammogram of that lump showed early breast cancer. The nurse-practitioner who ordered the mammogram knew about a federal program for treatment of breast and cervical cancers in low-income women. I applied for the program and was accepted for my mammogram and subsequent biopsy. Once the biopsy showed that I indeed had cancer, the Oregon Health Plan kicked in, along with the federal program, to treat my cancer.

The care I received was phenomenal. I was able to choose my doctors. My surgeon and oncologists were all brilliant, amazing physicians. All of the staff in every facility treated me with kindness and respect. Throughout the process I was a partner in my care, everyone explaining procedures at a level commensurate with my education and understanding. Never once was I made to feel like a second-class citizen because of my public health status. I completed radiation treatments and, because I take an estrogen-blocking drug, have continued on the public-health program.

As part of my care, I was required to pay $3 for doctor visits. I had two surgeries for a biopsy and lumpectomy, a needle biopsy, radiation, multiple mammograms, and attended countless doctor appointments with various practitioners. The only bills I ever received were for the $3 fees. Not once did I suffer through multiple bills, trying to sort out which my insurance company had paid, who had been billed, who was owed what. I was spared all of this thanks to public healthcare.

Since the healthcare debate has come to the fore over the last year, I have read and heard story after story of women with cancers like mine who were "covered" by private health insurance. Over and over, I have heard of the trauma and stress these women experienced at the hands of their insurance companies at the same time they were dealing with the pain, fear, and exhaustion of their illness. Each time I heard these stories, I felt grateful that I was covered by a public health plan.

Part of the health care debate has included the old canards about the Canadian and British health systems. "You can't choose your doctor." "You have to wait for months to get treated." These claims have been widely discredited, and I saw nothing in my experience with American public healthcare that was lacking. I chose all of my doctors. I was served immediately.

I sincerely hope our legislators can get their act together and create a health plan that provides health care for every American so all of us can experience true and complete care, as I did. It can work. It does work. We all deserve nothing less.

Comments

[Kelli Pretton James]

I am a poster child for the average young professional. And my profile is much more general - far reaching than Ms. Gardner. I represent far more of you out there. I'm in good health, and starting my own business. Money is tight right now, although I'm confident of success in a few years of hard work. For the present, I can't have it all. I have to prioritize. I choose not to purchase health insurance.

Under the proposed plan, health insurance is mandated - yes, even for persons in their late 20s. If I fail to purchase it, I'll be taxed more (I understand another 2.5% of my income). This plan works at least in part because those of us who frequently choose not to insure for those years of likely health are forced to participate. It's like this. Someone comes to your house selling tickets for a raffle. Say 20% of householdstypically participate. The prize is nominal. But under a new mandate, all households are forced to participate. I can no longer say, "no thanks." Of course, the prize is more impressive. Some win, but many lose. We lose our freedom to opt out.

When I first heard Obama call for healthcare for all, I thought it was a great idea. Next time, when I hear wide sweeping promises, I'll think about what it'll cost. I was naive.

[tomofcda]

Your analogy is nonsense because you simply don't have perfect foreknowledge of your need for medical treatment.

I was, in my later 20s, a grad student on the fast track to a PhD. I also decided to forgo health insurance while in school. Finally, I finally was able to afford an MRI o investigate some back pain and leg numbness I was experiencing. The result? The scan uncovered a very long spinal cord tumor. The subsequent surgery to remove the tumor left me in a wheelchair. I certainly don't like to dwell, but if I had the scan even five years earlier, the surgery would almost certainly have been less destructive.

If you asked me in my late 20s I, like you, would have said I was in good health. You simply don't know when or if you are going to have an accident that will require medical care. You may not like to think of your own mortality and god forbid anything bad happen to you. Under the current system, something bad could befall you and then not only would your business be at risk, you might be financially ruined, or you would cost everyone else in the country money.

Sure people in their 20s don't like to be forced to buy health insurance, but there remain very good reason why everyone should be covered, whether they can recognize what is best for them or not.

[TheBlackCat]

Agree completely about 20 year olds being too confident in their invulnerability due to youth. Any one of us could be hit by a bus tomorrow.

However, I do understand Kelli's point about compulsory health insurance.

For instance I live in Massachusetts where health insurance is compulsory. My sister had the state health insurance plan, and her plan required a premium of $100 a month. She lost her job, was unable to pay the premium, and her insurance was dropped. She then applied for a new program, and she was able to qualify for a health plan with no premium as she was now unemployed. She then got a new job, and got her premium re instated.

However, then when taxes came around, she was charged several hundred dollars in tax penalties for NOT having health insurance for those several months before her new plan was activated. She didn't not have health insurance because she didn't want it, she didn't have it because she did not have one extra dollar to spend on it. The tax penalty in effect acted as a "poor tax" on her, she was penalized for the crime of not having the money to pay her premium.

Though I work in health care and have seen MassHealth help a lot of people, I certainly hope the Massachusetts model is not the model the federal government bases its health policy on.

[John Graham]

Here's another take on the Oregon Health Plan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6ojBgTyA7I. Fortunately for this woman with cancer, whose treatment the OHP declined to pay for, got the drugs she needed on a compassionate basis from the drugmaker.

[Pablo175]

Why can't each state decide what to do. Massachusetts is struggling with costs. Tennessee had to cut back on their universal system. It seems like we should let states experiment to see what works and why.

[gkamisbrown]

And who gets to die while we're waiting for 50 different states to "figure it out"? Nearly the entire Western World has already figured it out-it's a basic right for EVERYONE from birth to death, paid for by our tax dollars. No insurance company premiums, so what we pay in taxes is more than offset by our savings in premiums and copays, businesses have lower costs, and costs are reduced because the government negotiates the prices. Drug and medical companies still make a profit, the only losers are the health insurance companies.

[dagnew]

"The only losers are the health insurance companies." As they should be. For-profit health insurance companies DO NOT belong in our health care, period. The government knows this very well, but Greed is running the government. Money talks, so it certainly won't be in my lifetime that we see a single-payer system. This system will have to fail, and fail it will, before anything really meaningful will get done.

[janeycat]

I for one love your senator.Wyden, i have seen him alot on TV lately speaking up for the people...It would be great if all of them were more like him.
My niece has large cysts on both of her ovaries.she has no insurance and cant get state insurance
either.her husband works be they dont have it where he works..the ER told her several times on different visits to go to her own Dr.
the only way they could treat her is if one of them burst,then they will remove both of them on a emergency basis...yea , the nurse told her this....so she lives in pain everyday ,until it gets so bad she goes back to the ER.
If she had some insurance she would not have to use the ER for care.
i keep a close eye on the progress i know we have coming our way....then she will have ( hopefully )
insurance to got to a OB/GYN.
I have another niece with serious mental health problems and cant go to a Dr.... i have high hopes for her too.
I'm the lucky one ,I'm disabled so i have Medicare/Medicaid and plan D for RX ....its bad when i can consider myself lucky in the shape I'm in.
wish you continued health and peace..

[TheMediaRanger]

Great news, Lara. Hope your recovery continues. You were in circumstances that required high quality, specialized care, and you got it despite being broke.

I happen to agree with your Senator Wyden out there Oregon way: "All Americans should be able to choose those options. The bottom line is that the public option can’t really hold private insurers accountable if it is only competing for 10 percent of the insurance market, because private insurance companies aren’t going to change their business practices if 90 percent of their customers can’t take their business elsewhere. Real reform means empowering Americans to choose insurance that works well for them and their family, while rejecting plans that don’t. Including a public option is a step in the right direction, now let’s remove the firewalls in this bill that prevent Americans from choosing it." (from a press release on Wyden's web site).

Stay well!

[Chris1950]

THAT EVALUATION PRETTY WELL SUMS IT UP. WE NEED TO HAVE A CHOICE FROM THOSE GREEDY " INSURERS" THEY HAVE ALMOST A MONOPOLY IN MOST STATES. WHAT HAPPENED TO GOOD 'OLE AMERICAN COMPETITION. IF THEY CAN'T COMPETE, THEY WILL HAVE TO TRIM THEIR OBSCENE PROFITS AND CEO LIFESTYLES.PERIOD.

[Willow712]

If they did not mandate insurance coverage for all, all the fairly healthy people would wait until they got sick, then go down to their local insurance store and buy coverage. They could wait for decades to need insurance, then get insurance when sick. Nobody would buy insurance, since there are going to be no more pre existing conditions. You could get cheap insurance in a minute, after seeing your Doctor. That's why we have to mandate insurance for everyone. Just as we need coverage for autos, we can't go down and buy insurance AFTER the accident.