[Previous "Stories I Like to Tell" posts here.]
There are stories I like to tell, and there are stories I don’t like to tell but that need telling. This is one of the latter. I’ll try to make it interesting.
I got laid off last October, by a publishing company for which I worked for almost five years. The industry as a whole has been hard-hit by the economic downturn, and nearly every publisher has had to make drastic cuts. Of course, getting laid off was a shock, and I was sad and disoriented for awhile. But I had been thinking about striking out on my own as a freelancer for more than a year, and it turned out that losing my job was exactly the kick in the pants I needed. I’m happy to report that I’ve been working steadily and bringing in a livable income for about eight months. (More work is always welcome, nudge-nudge!)
There was (and is) a problem, however. We had terrific health insurance through my employer, and continuing that coverage through COBRA would have cost nearly $800 a month (for two people!). This we could not afford—it was more than our rent! “Not to worry,” we said to each other. “We’ll apply for an individual policy—a bare-bones, catastrophic-care, astronomically high-deductible policy that will be a stop-gap for emergencies until such a time as we can afford more comprehensive coverage.” Paying for health insurance—just like paying for car or renter’s insurance—is part of being responsible adults, and going without on faith that we’d never need to see the doctor was not an option.
We got turned down flat by every private insurer to which we applied—and we applied to a great many. I have Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (whew!), a genetic disorder that, in my family, results in occasional gastro-intestinal bleeding. (I tell my mom, “At least I got your brains and good looks, too.”) As you might imagine, HHT is considered a pre-existing condition—it being all genetic and whatnot—and we found out right swiftly that no insurance company would touch me.
In the middle of all that drama, my kidneys went all wonky (because random G.I. bleeding and starting a new business and trying to find health insurance were not enough to keep me occupied). When the problem could no longer be ignored, we discovered that our county has a healthcare program for low-income families—which, at that time, we were. I have received outstanding, affordable care since we were accepted into the program, and am incredibly thankful for the last resort offered by our local government.
But . . . the program is offered for 12 months at a time, and at the end of December we will lose our last resort. We’ve worked our way out of low-income-ness and will no longer qualify by the end of the year. We will renew our quest for healthcare coverage at square one.
I know there are people who are worried at the prospect of a public health plan. They’re worried that a “public option” will hurt private industry or that healthcare will be “rationed” (take it from me—it already is!) or that the costs will far outstrip the benefits. These seem like legitimate concerns, and honestly, I’m not far enough down in the healthcare policy weeds to give an adequate answer to them.
But outside a public plan, I come up with only one option: Get a job with health benefits. I am open to this option—not thrilled with; open to—but am almost certain it would mean a complete career change, given the current condition of the publishing industry. (It occurs to me that I must write a post about the state and future of publishing. Stay tuned.)
I love what I do. I want to keep doing it. If possible, I’d like to keep doing it without a boss. I have time to go to my many doctors’ appointments, to garden, to cook, to hang out with my husband and other resident mammals, and to (occasionally) tinker with my own writing projects—and still get my clients’ work done. I don’t savor the idea of trading all that work-life balance away to punch the clock at a job that’s likely outside my training, expertise and satisfaction.
Bring on the government-funded healthcare, I say. But maybe you have other ideas . . . ?
Filed under: life, politics Tagged: | employee benefits, healthcare, public option, publishing industry, stories I like to tell
Fixing a problem by handing it to the government is like removing a stain from your carpet by shitting on it: it doesn’t work, and you end up knee-deep in shit.
Perhaps a law prohibiting the consideration of existing conditions? This doesn’t appeal to me either, and would still result in a mandated transfer of wealth from healthy people to unhealthy ones. But at least it wouldn’t increase any further the amount of GDP consumed by the federal government, which is the most reliable long-term measure of economic and political stability for a country that I know of.
Fixing a problem by handing it to the government is like removing a stain from your carpet by shitting on it: it doesn’t work, and you end up knee-deep in shit.
The shitting half of your metaphor seems incontrovertible—unless you’re one of those people who shits carpet cleaner (I’m not)—but I don’t think the first half is quite so self-evident. I know you and I have differing ideas about what government should and shouldn’t do, and I’m not interested in convincing you I’m right. (I’m not sure I am right.) But it’s a fact that there are countries with governments that provide a baseline of healthcare for their citizens, and that this provision is seen, by many of those citizens in many of those places, as an adequate and welcome “fix” to the problem of healthcare. It’s not obvious to them that they are shitting on their own carpet, and it would likely take more than a little convincing to persuade them.
I’m interested in your mandate idea. I’ll have to think on that one.
I’m not wholly persuaded that economic growth should be the bottom line when it comes to things like healthcare (and the environment, for that matter). Obviously, growth is important—but I don’t think it’s “good” in and of itself, without any other considerations. Growth comes at a cost, and I think we should be cognizant of those costs in order to make wise and sustainable decisions.
Sorry—scatter-shot reply. Deadline looming.
When in doubt, I like to turn to legos…
http://politicalmath.wordpress.com/category/health-care-reform/
Rach – I love Legos! And that was awesome.
My post was already too long to elaborate, but as I wrote, I’ve had a pretty satisfying experience with “government” medicine. My doctor (who was my doctor back in the gainfully employed days) is wonderful, and has managed all my appointments with specialists, etc. Yes, I’ve had to wait a couple of weeks for those appointments, but I was admitted immediately to the hospital the only time my situation was a true emergency. If I’m honest, I’ll admit to a suspicion that the high level of care I’ve received is in part due to being somewhat of a medical anomaly—everybody wants to get a look at Telangiectasia Girl. But it could be that I just feel like a freak.
I recently finished Paul Johnson’s _Modern Times_, which presents a fairly convincing case that political and economic stability – not growth – track pretty consistently with the size of government as a percentage of GDP: the larger the government expressed as a percentage of GDP, the less stability. Of course, I probably find this persuasive in part because it’s consistent with my political ideology, but, hey, that’s what a worldview is for.
I feel your pain, Aly–because I’ve been in exactly the same predicament since going fulltime freelance in 2004. Lots of turndowns, and my only final salvation was a state-run option called CoverColorado. It’s the pool of people no insurance company wants, but the state government says to them, “If you want to sell insurance in our state, you have to take care of this pool, too. We’ll collect the premiums, and you do the administration of benefits. Otherwise, get out of our state.”
Does California have something similar?
Hi, Dean! Thanks for stopping by.
California does have something similar, which we looked into when we were turned down by the thirty-seventh (or so) insurer. At the time we explored that option, we were told to apply to both MediCal (nope—the reasons are convoluted) and to our county’s program (yep), because our income was so dismal. The state pool will definitely be something we revisit later in the year to find out if we can get in on the action . . . that is, if there’s even a California government left to which we can apply!
Thanks, by the way, to everyone who has emailed their ideas. Apparently, I should have asked earlier for help, a lesson I will actually learn at some point in the future.
Hi Aly, I just follow you from Addison Rd…
Anyway. I’m from Louisiana but have lived in Canada for 10 years now. I married a Canadian.
I’m shocked to read how vilified the Canadian system is. I don’t know what people are talking about. The government does not control health care here. The doctors and the doctors alone determine my care. I don’t like my doctor I go to ratemd and find myself another. The wait times are blown out of proportion in the media and considering people here actually go to the doctor when they need to problems are diagnosed sooner anyway.
It’s not government-run. The only difference is that it’s a single payer system. Every doctor knows who to bill my visits to. It cuts down on administrative costs across the board. I guess I’m just tired of hearing the silliness down there about all of this.
I’m very sorry to hear about your problems and I hope things work out for you.
I have been searching blogs to find people interested in HHT. Our family has been greatly impacted by this little-known disease, and after years of feeling helpless and hopeless, we’ve seen drastic improvement thanks to the work of the HHT Foundation and the health-care professionals at the HHT Centers of Excellence worldwide. My husband has gone from a hemoglobin of 6.4 to well over 16! He is able to walk and jog, feels optimistic and almost never has a nosebleed after months of projectile bleeding, blood transfusions, iron infusions and multiple procedures all due to HHT. For information about the latest advances in HHT, go to the Foundation’s web site: http://www.hht.org