Disclaimer: If you work for an insurance company, my apologies.
Let me explain the high wire act that people with medical conditions and people of modest means must perform to a) earn a living and b) be able to pay medical bills. I require an immune system medicine that costs between $1,000-$1,500 every three weeks. If I don’t have it, I’ll wind up in the hospital within 3-6 months. I make enough for a family of three to pay the bills, especially if the other spouse works, which my wife does. Long before I got married and before I was earning any significant amount of income, I was enrolled in Medicaid to help pay for this medicine. The program covered all of it and almost all of any other medical bills, prescriptions, etc. I also received a check every month of about $550, as I recall. The caveat to this, however, was that if one actually wanted to get a full-time job, that job must be a menial one. The Social Security Administration put a cap on what a person could make each month and still receive benefits. I think the cap was about $1,100 per month at that time. But say a person actually wanted a real career and had the opportunity to make quite a bit more. This was certainly possible, but one would lose not only the check, but the medical coverage. So, say one gets a job making $1,500 per month at a place that doesn’t offer employee benefits … or if that person was technically part-time, but still made more than $1,500. Nothing changed about their medical condition. Other than needing the expensive medicine, they are otherwise fairly healthy. They simple desire to work to try to make a better way for themselves.
Obviously, I am referring to myself and others caught in this go-between. To such people, Social Security leaves you out in the cold. If you make over their set amount, you are cut off regardless of whether you can afford medical coverage some other way (which you likely can’t because of your dire need for the expensive medicine.) So, in essence, Medicaid rewards people who are resolved to sit at home, bring in a check and not get out and try to work, when in fact, it’s the people who get out and try to work that Medicaid should reward for attempting to make an honest living by continuing coverage up to a certain earning level (which should be much, much more than $1,100 per month. How can anyone making under $50,000 or even $100,000 per year afford $1,000-$1,500 every three weeks?
This brings us to health insurance. At my former position, I was able to cover myself and my wife for about $160 per paycheck. This was somewhat reasonable, and for a period, we were both able to go to the doctor using my insurance. I recently got a new job, and since I have been there three months, I was eligible to apply for insurance. At the meeting, I found out that insurance for just myself would be $76 and to add my wife, another $226, which amounts to about $400 per paycheck. That’s $800 per month. I was astounded when I learned how much it would be. Tack on vision and dental and add $40 more to the equation. Not to reveal what I earn per month, but suffice it to say that, not only would I not be able to afford to pay the bills, we would probably have to fold up shop, quit my job, leave town and stay with my parents until we figured out what to do.
I admit, I was angry when I found out how much it would cost. And what’s more, the medicine that I require every three weeks is not covered on this $400 per paycheck insurance. So I’m resolved to the fact that insurance companies of all creeds are nothing but scavengers. Luckily, I can stay on my father’s insurance for now, but that by itself does not cover nearly the entire amount of this medicine per treatment.
I’ve been thinking about something else. Folks can decry the trappings of universal health care all they want, about how it would raise taxes, would be run poorly, etc. but at least alternative methods to tackling pharmaceutical and insurance companies are being developed. Republicans can mention “God” in every other breath as much as they want, but the truth is, people in this country are hurting financially, physically and in other ways, and the current leadership has taken steps to contribute to that hurt. The administration has overseen the mishandling of billions in war that could have been better used elsewhere and gas prices, largely because of that war, have risen dramatically: so much so that people are being forced to make life decisions at the pump.
There is something very un-Christian about what is happening. Make no mistake. I’m familiar with the rhetoric. Republicans say: Let’s have limited national government and let’s let local government and individual communities take care and minister to each other. This way, government will stay out of your way and allow churches, civic organizations and individuals to care for those in their own communities. Well, here we are: eight years into that ideology. Are people in their individual communities reaching out to others, caring for the sick and helping the poor? Some are; more aren’t. I’m quite familiar with the potential for government programs to be inept (see above), but perhaps a sound leadership can help fix the ineptness, weed out the erroneous policies and let the government stop mismanaging money and help people who are hurting here at home, instead of spending billions on a people who would rather have us out of their country in the first place.
Sorry this was terribly long. If you got this far, thanks. If you didn’t, I understand.