Health Care Reform and ME
I just got done watching a Keith Olbermann special commentary on Health Care Reform that one of my friends linked to on Facebook. Here's the link if you are interested in watching it yourself.
While I am not in 100% agreement with everything that he says, I do agree on one very fundamental part of this issue. Health Care Reform REALLY IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH!
Having been one of those people who faced the sick prospect of being too poor to be allowed to live, I stand strongly for the public option.
When I was younger, every trip to the doctor was a question of "can we afford it?" or "couldn't you just live with it?" or "it can't be that bad, can it?". Hell, my first pair of glasses was school mandated since I couldn't see the blackboard even from the first row. EVEN THEN the debate as to whether or not the family could afford for me to have them continued until the Principal threatened to refuse to allow me to attend without them. All of these issues added up over time to the point where I have never (except when I was in the Army) gone to a doctor unless it was a serious emergency. I lived in a world where trauma care was the only kind of care that I could rationalize, and as the story below shows, even then only in the most desperate of circumstances.
All of this happened when I was 19. It was a Saturday morning, and I hadn't slept in 4 days. Over the course of those 4 days, the first joint of the thumb on my left hand had swollen until it was the size of a golf ball. I no longer even had a visible fingerprint because the skin was so taut. All week I had been asking my dad to take me to the hospital, because something was seriously wrong. All week I saw the agony play across my father's face, as he reluctantly told me again and again that the hospital wasn't an option because I was 19 and no longer under his insurance. All week, I raged against how unfair it was that any relief that I could gain would doom our family to much more suffering and possibly starvation once the bills came. I convinced myself that this was my cross to bear, and that even if this pain crippled me, I wouldn't cripple the whole family because of it. That bravado lasted for another 6 hours.
I tried to grin and bear it, but eventually even the buckets of ice and the 2-4 aspirin tablets that I was eating hourly couldn't stem the pain enough for my brain to function. I had started blacking out due to the exhaustion, and my thumb had started turning a sick purple. Lines of the same bruise-like color had begun snaking up my arm and I was running a 104 degree fever. I was lost in an ocean of pain and there seemed to be no end in sight.
Finally on Saturday afternoon I completely snapped. I begged and pleaded with my father to make the pain stop, even if it meant ending my life. It wasn't until I got to the point of actually praying for death that he relented and began formulating a plan. He immediately began gathering things up so that he could take me to the hospital.
Now, these things included hair clippers, my brother's social security card, and his insurance cards as well as more asprin and a fresh bucket of ice. Why the hair clippers and my brother's social security card you ask? Simple, because the only way other than killing me that my father could think of to relieve my pain was to have me pretend to be my brother so that we could use insurance, since my bother was still 17.
Life was a blur of pain and exhaustion as he sat me down in a chair in our kitchen and shaved my head. As he worked. he coached me on my brother's social security number, age, and other details. The whole way to the hospital the questions continued. He even went so far as to scold me when I answered to my own name.
We got the the emergency room, and the triage nurse about fainted at the sight of my arm and hand. She immediately rushed us in after having me jump through all of the paperwork hoops that the car trip had prepared me for. Finally, our ruse a success, I received the medical care that I had pleaded for over the past four days. It had been a staph infection, and those horrible purple lines that had been racing towards my heart would have been fatal had they arrived.
The doctor chided my father for how long the infection had been allowed to spread. My father accepted the scolding graciously, secretly relieved that we had pulled it off and that I had received the care that I needed. The doctor wrote out 3 prescriptions and sent us on our way with instructions for draining away the infection and tending the wound. It would be 3 months before we could allow the wound to close. All of this activity was supposed to be doctor monitored, but knowing that we couldn't possibly keep up our scam for such an extended period of time, we never went back. My father and I struggled to take care of it ourselves from that point forward.
All in all, we got lucky. The infection passed, I have full use of my thumb, and the insurance company paid all of the bills. However, the fact that we had to deceive people to receive health care, and the fact that it had been the only choice that we felt we had, haunts me to this day. I am sickened by the fact that in this country, the greatest country on Earth, there had been a very real possibility that I would have died had we been discovered in our lie. (not to mention the legal ramifications) This event happened 9 years ago, and this problem has only gotten worse since then.
So to all of the politicians who are making decisions about Health Care Reform. Realize that REAL people are suffering every day. Real people are being forced to choose between life with pain and suffering and a half-life of crippling debt and financial ruin. Know that there are still parents with agony imprinted on their faces because they see no way to relieve the pain that their children are going through. Know that some Americans confront a very real choice between accepting DEATH now or accepting DEBT that will kill them just as surely, but more slowly. Know that there are people who now find themselves in the same situation that I was in, people who are being forced to LIE in order to have access to the most basic of human rights. The right to LIVE.
And then, only then, make your choice on whether or not a public option is necessary for this country.
While I am not in 100% agreement with everything that he says, I do agree on one very fundamental part of this issue. Health Care Reform REALLY IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH!
Having been one of those people who faced the sick prospect of being too poor to be allowed to live, I stand strongly for the public option.
When I was younger, every trip to the doctor was a question of "can we afford it?" or "couldn't you just live with it?" or "it can't be that bad, can it?". Hell, my first pair of glasses was school mandated since I couldn't see the blackboard even from the first row. EVEN THEN the debate as to whether or not the family could afford for me to have them continued until the Principal threatened to refuse to allow me to attend without them. All of these issues added up over time to the point where I have never (except when I was in the Army) gone to a doctor unless it was a serious emergency. I lived in a world where trauma care was the only kind of care that I could rationalize, and as the story below shows, even then only in the most desperate of circumstances.
All of this happened when I was 19. It was a Saturday morning, and I hadn't slept in 4 days. Over the course of those 4 days, the first joint of the thumb on my left hand had swollen until it was the size of a golf ball. I no longer even had a visible fingerprint because the skin was so taut. All week I had been asking my dad to take me to the hospital, because something was seriously wrong. All week I saw the agony play across my father's face, as he reluctantly told me again and again that the hospital wasn't an option because I was 19 and no longer under his insurance. All week, I raged against how unfair it was that any relief that I could gain would doom our family to much more suffering and possibly starvation once the bills came. I convinced myself that this was my cross to bear, and that even if this pain crippled me, I wouldn't cripple the whole family because of it. That bravado lasted for another 6 hours.
I tried to grin and bear it, but eventually even the buckets of ice and the 2-4 aspirin tablets that I was eating hourly couldn't stem the pain enough for my brain to function. I had started blacking out due to the exhaustion, and my thumb had started turning a sick purple. Lines of the same bruise-like color had begun snaking up my arm and I was running a 104 degree fever. I was lost in an ocean of pain and there seemed to be no end in sight.
Finally on Saturday afternoon I completely snapped. I begged and pleaded with my father to make the pain stop, even if it meant ending my life. It wasn't until I got to the point of actually praying for death that he relented and began formulating a plan. He immediately began gathering things up so that he could take me to the hospital.
Now, these things included hair clippers, my brother's social security card, and his insurance cards as well as more asprin and a fresh bucket of ice. Why the hair clippers and my brother's social security card you ask? Simple, because the only way other than killing me that my father could think of to relieve my pain was to have me pretend to be my brother so that we could use insurance, since my bother was still 17.
Life was a blur of pain and exhaustion as he sat me down in a chair in our kitchen and shaved my head. As he worked. he coached me on my brother's social security number, age, and other details. The whole way to the hospital the questions continued. He even went so far as to scold me when I answered to my own name.
We got the the emergency room, and the triage nurse about fainted at the sight of my arm and hand. She immediately rushed us in after having me jump through all of the paperwork hoops that the car trip had prepared me for. Finally, our ruse a success, I received the medical care that I had pleaded for over the past four days. It had been a staph infection, and those horrible purple lines that had been racing towards my heart would have been fatal had they arrived.
The doctor chided my father for how long the infection had been allowed to spread. My father accepted the scolding graciously, secretly relieved that we had pulled it off and that I had received the care that I needed. The doctor wrote out 3 prescriptions and sent us on our way with instructions for draining away the infection and tending the wound. It would be 3 months before we could allow the wound to close. All of this activity was supposed to be doctor monitored, but knowing that we couldn't possibly keep up our scam for such an extended period of time, we never went back. My father and I struggled to take care of it ourselves from that point forward.
All in all, we got lucky. The infection passed, I have full use of my thumb, and the insurance company paid all of the bills. However, the fact that we had to deceive people to receive health care, and the fact that it had been the only choice that we felt we had, haunts me to this day. I am sickened by the fact that in this country, the greatest country on Earth, there had been a very real possibility that I would have died had we been discovered in our lie. (not to mention the legal ramifications) This event happened 9 years ago, and this problem has only gotten worse since then.
So to all of the politicians who are making decisions about Health Care Reform. Realize that REAL people are suffering every day. Real people are being forced to choose between life with pain and suffering and a half-life of crippling debt and financial ruin. Know that there are still parents with agony imprinted on their faces because they see no way to relieve the pain that their children are going through. Know that some Americans confront a very real choice between accepting DEATH now or accepting DEBT that will kill them just as surely, but more slowly. Know that there are people who now find themselves in the same situation that I was in, people who are being forced to LIE in order to have access to the most basic of human rights. The right to LIVE.
And then, only then, make your choice on whether or not a public option is necessary for this country.