Who needs healthcare anyhow?

The other day an old lady showed up at our door. She was collecting donations for a three year old boy who has a brain tumor and needs a ten thousand dollar operation that his parents can not afford. She had a permit from the government to canvas for donations and spent a second or two proving her legitimacy to us.  We have a three year old boy ourselves and despite money being tight for us right now, we scraped up ten dollars to donate. What kind of person could say no to that?

Obviously there are quite a lot of people who can say no to that as there is a constant outcry whenever the topic of healthcare reform is breached. What kind of monsters have we become that we will let three year old children live with brain tumors because they fall into the gap with their health insurance or heaven forbid, are uninsured?

I've run the full gamut myself, been uninsured, had the best insurance (once with a union job and once with a state affiliated job), and am once again in danger of joining the ranks of the uninsured. I can tell you from experience that the level of care one receives, even in the ER while they are uninsured versus insured is a vastly different thing. I have a chronic pain disorder and occasionally it flares up beyond my abilities to manage it, which necessitates trips the the ER. When I was uninsured, I was given pain meds and sent home with admonitions to follow up with someone. When I explained that I was uninsured and could not follow up with someone they basically told me they had done all they could. Insured ER trips meant tests and follow ups. They even found out that I had been suffering from something completely curable and that most of my pain trips were related to that and not my chronic issue. What a difference an insurance card makes.

Or does it? I know of people who have copays of $15, $20, and even $35 for routine doctor visits. For someone making $10 an hour, that's a half a day's work for one doctor visit. Thus getting sick is a luxury one can really not afford. Heaven forbid one needs to make multiple visits in one week or needs prescriptions...or more than one of your children have the audacity to get sick at the same time. Suddenly you can find yourself working just to pay for your healthcare and that doesn't include all the happy bills that arrive later with the percentages that your insurance didn't cover and the happy surprises where they refused to pay for something for some inane reason.

I know, I know, everyone is thinking, 'What about medicaid? It's there for the poor.' Is it? A married couple without children are not eligible for medicaid. Single people are not eligible for medicaid, even if they have disabilities. I know of several people personally who have serious disabilities, such as seizure disorders and Multiple Sclerosis who have been denied medicaid. Why? Because in order to get medicaid in the state of Ohio, you have to be declared disabled by Social Security. Being declared disabled by Social Security is a process that literally takes years, you have to not work during that time and not be able to work. They normally deny people and then the individual has to fight the decision. One has to have medical records backing up their disability and if they have been insured, guess where that leaves them?

Over and over I hear the cry that we have the best health care in the world. Perhaps we do, for those who can afford it. For the rest of us, we'd settle for even mediocre healthcare that we could afford.