David Sirota: My Stressful Day with Healthcare (MUST READ!!)

[antigop]

http://action.credomobile.com/sirota/2008/05/my_stressful_day_with_health_c.html

Thanks to America's health care system, today was a very stressful day for me. My story is so typical as to be boring - which is a really sad commentary.

This morning, while thumbing through some routine paperwork, my wife discovered that I have no health insurance. Without going into the details, we missed a bi-annual deadline for payment - a deadline that the company buried in fine print, and one that the company didn't even bother to tell us was approaching, or even missed after the fact. They just ended my coverage, with not so much as a letter or a phone call.

Fortunately for us, we discovered the situation before a 60-day continuity-of-coverage window closes, and I got temporary insurance. Of course, for bureaucratic reasons that I don't understand, I'm not allowed to re-enroll in the same plan I thought I was on. I have to wait to do that. Put another way, the health care company that had been gouging me, and then tossed me away without so much as a peep, is perfectly fine leaving me without coverage - even if I'm willing to pay for it.

My initial reaction this morning was raw panic. Until the situation was resolved, I felt like I was going to periodically break down and cry because I felt so completely helpless. But now that the initial shock has passed, I can say I'm lucky in all of this.

[Mandate My Ass]

1. Ah yes, I remember that panic well

Now that I'm 15 months without insurance, I've had to borrow money to have teeth pulled that were perfectly fixable, but too expensive to repair. I have given up taking meds for my fibromyalgia so I can eat. The panic has been replaced with weary resignation, which is so much better for my health.

It's not so bad once you get used to it. :eyes:

[antigop]

2. I live with that panic every single day (and night) -- haven't slept well in a LOONG time n/t

[mac2]

6. You can imagine being homeless at the same time.

Wonder why the homeless have mental and drug problems? They are under a lot of stress in a wealthy country who has many billionaires (made on the backs of workers).

[antigop]

7. Good points. n/t

[boobooday]

3. He gets to the point near the end

Our health care system is immoral. We really need to make this point.

[antigop]

4. Absolutely -- that's why I said it was a MUST READ

Perhaps I should have put that in the OP.

[mac2]

5. When Hillary and Obama talk about health care for all

I'm not sure what they mean. It's rather muddy. Hillary talks about children but what about us adults who take care of those children?

Sorry this happened to you David. The people (like our Congress) who have good insurance say we don't need health care for all. They are self serving.

Waiting is a bummer and should be illegal. You need it when you need it.

[ThatsMyBarack]

8. Why aren't the crooks behind health care...

In jail by now? :mad: :shrug:

[peace13]

9. And why have we been talking about health care for oh so many years?

It's just like the energy crisis. We have talked about oil running out since before 1975! 33 years and still no solution. If we leave it up to Congress and politicians we will never solve these very crucial issues. We're gonna need a BIG jail!

[havocmom]

10. People who HAVE insurance are finding, more & more, that they really don't

Insurers doing all sorts of underhanded shit to deny coverage and exclude treatments/conditions.

Give us your $$ so we can buy stocks on Wall Street, but if the market sucks, so does the coverage you thought you had for all the money you gave us.

Single payer! The paperwork jungle costs $$ and creates more loopholes through which the consumer gets screwn

[MountainLaurel]

11. Excellent piece

I wanted to post his finale, because it is so very important:

This situation is emblematic of a health care system that is both immoral and broken. Throwing people off their health insurance with no warning because they accidentally misread fine print is sick and wrong - and should be criminal like it is, say, with housing. In many localities, landlords have to give you at least some warning before evicting you for a missed payment. But unbelievably, that's not the way it is with health care.

The behavior is perfectly legal thanks to government policies that allow health insurance companies to do whatever they want, to whomever they want. And the behavior has created a whole new culture of fear. We now not only have to be afraid of Al Qaeda and hurricanes and evildoers, but also of the health insurance companies that we are customers of - and executives from these companies still have the nerve to go before Congress and publicly wonder why so many people hate their guts.

That this fear is now becoming an anger-based political uprising shouldn't be surprising. A population forced to live under this kind of terror - and that's what it is - is one that will start fighting back when the survival instinct kicks in. And by the looks of the polls on health care, the survival instinct has most definitely kicked in. Better late than never.