Mar 07 2010
Weighing in on Health Care Reform
“I believe it’s time to give the American people more control over their health care and their health insurance.”
Karen, a social worker living in San Francisco, wrote to us last week. She said she couldn’t make it to Washington, DC, for Tuesday’s mass citizens arrest of insurance industry lobbyists, but wanted to weigh in from her own perspective. Read her story below:
I have been a social worker for almost 25 years. I have witnessed, held hands, and advocated for uninsured and underinsured women and children for decades. And more recently I have unintentionally become a poster child for insurance reform. I am now self-employed in private practice. When I left my agency job, and my COBRA was about to run out, I worked with an insurance broker to apply for individual coverage, and I was turned down for the most inane reasons. I was able to convert my COBRA plan to an individual plan, but my premiums are almost $700/month. As a social worker I make a livable income, but those premiums are prohibitive.
Now I am terrified to go to the doctor for anything at all.
I have no chronic illnesses or injuries; I take no medication, have never been hospitalized or had surgery. I exercise daily and am overall in excellent health. I am also a white, middle-class, graduate school educated, English speaking person who has worked in health care and can advocate for myself pretty well, and I feel completely disempowered by the current system. What about poor people, undereducated people, folks for whom English is not their first language? Who will advocate for them?
I am uncertain how the current proposed health care reform option will even make a difference for me. What might happen if I am injured, or just experience the common ailments of middle age? There are very few options for buying into more affordable group health insurance here in California, where the insurance lobby is very powerful.
It is unconscionable that this country is being held hostage by the insurance lobby. These insurance companies are making huge profits while so many Americans do not have options for affordable health care or health insurance. Anyone who is covered by their spouse’s insurance could end up in the same boat if they get divorced, or God forbid their spouse dies. These are ethical and practical questions that demand ethical and practical solutions. Watching Congress engage in privileged, long-winded partisan squabbling while millions of real people, including families and children and elderly people, are unable to obtain health care or health insurance.
I am angry, and I am frightened. And I know there are many many others who feel the same way.
Thank you for all of your efforts to advocate for health care for all Americans, and to hold our elected officials accountable for their complicit behavior with the insurance lobby.
Sincerely,
Karen
Hope the reform will really bring people a better future.