The U.S. is the Land of Gun Care and Health Control
***Trigger Warning For Disturbing Content And A Disturbing Picture***
The following is a true story with the names changed.
I will refer to the party in the story as Jane. Jane was a 32 year old woman working a full time job. Jane had employer provided insurance. Like most people in the United States, Jane struggled with high copays, deductibles, and out of pockets, but at least a catastrophe would be covered, or so she thought.
Jane is a type one diabetic, and has been on insulin since she was a child. Jane struggled to pay for her insulin since there is a specific type she needs, and the generics did not work as effectively. Her insurance routinely denied the more effective types, and her doctors had to spend many hours fighting the insurance denials, time which should have been spent working with patients, rather than arguing with bean counters whose purpose is solely to deny health benefits.
However, Jane managed to control her diabetes even with the bare minimum her for profit based health business allowed her. Until…
The day her employer went out of business and closed. Jane no longer had employer based health care. This was not Jane’s fault, as she did not cause the employer to close, nor was she fired due to any incompetence or misconduct. She had no warning. She simply went into work and found she no longer had a job.
Jane started her job search, and applied for medicaid and the ACA. It was early in the month, and nothing kicked in until the start of the next month. Everything also was based on her last year’s taxes, which showed an income double the poverty level, but well below the median for her state. It left her falling through the cracks for much aid.
Jane began rationing insulin. On a Friday, Jane woke up blind. She had gone to bed Thursday just fine. Her retinas had detached in the night.
Jane went to the emergency room in her urban area. After waiting for several hours, she was told that her retinas were an ophthalmology issue, and to contact “ her opthamologist.” She did not have an opthamologist. She had seen an optometrist from time to time, but rarely as her insurance did not have vision benefits, and paying out of pocket was a luxury item she did not have the spare cash to afford.
By this time, it was the evening on Friday, and all opthamology offices were closed. She had to wait until Monday. So Monday Jane started calling. She only found one who would see her that day.
He told her to do surgery on her, he wanted 5 thousand dollars per side as a down payment to even consider her as she was uninsured. She had no way to raise that kind of money, and frantically started a gofundme, but it was largely ignored. Her retinas dried out, as this was a time sensitive issue.
Jane is now blind for the rest of her life. Jane now gets disability, is on medicare and medicaid, and medical needs are paid for, but she preferred working and taking care of herself. A simple operation would have prevented this all.
The above picture is “Jane” now.
Yet many opponents of Universal Health care are afraid that one person who is “undeserving” might get some health care. For confirmation on this, visit the social media site “Quora” and enter “Universal Health.”
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