In which Anna rants about the government shutdown

[annathepiper]

So in between the network outage fun we’ve been having today, and a whole mess of various unpleasant things happening to various friends of mine (seriously, Monday, KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF), oh hey look the threatened U.S. government shutdown has happened. Because the Republicans have their damn shorts in a twist over the specter of Americans finally getting some goddamn healthcare.

How disgusted am I that the government is even arguing over this? Let’s review my and Dara’s health care timeline, shall we?

2003: I broke my arm.

2004: I had the first half of my thyroid out.

2005: I had the second half of my thyroid out.

2006: Dara got hit by the car.

2007: I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

2007-2009: Assorted lumpectomies, biopses, radiation treatments, and eventual mastectomy and reconstruction work.

2010-2011: Actually got some breathing room for once, and then…

2012: I get smacked with the h. pylori infection. Which, for the record: NOT FUN.

Throughout all of this, I have been fortunate to have regular enough employment with insurance that doesn’t suck that we managed to flounder our way through what out of pocket costs we had to handle–and even with the insurance, the cancer costs alone that Dara and I had to put down were well into five figures.

If we’d had to do this without insurance, it would have bankrupted us a long time ago. As it stands, I’ve simply had to learn to deal with a body that aches in various places from the various medical problems it’s undergone, and Dara and I both have gotten way more familiar with Evergreen Hospital than anyone should ever get with a hospital, except the people that actually work there.

I am beyond grateful that I’ve managed to maintain employment with insurance that doesn’t suck. I’ve been in a situation where that wasn’t the case–because I came out of a childhood and adolescence with a mother who had to fight cancer, and which killed her too damn young. My mother died when she was 38, people. Because we were too damn poor to continue to get her the care she needed. She went through grand mal epileptic seizures through all that I can remember of her life, because she’d had a goddamn tumor in her brain, and she remained in poor health up until the day she died.

And the thing that disgusts me? The thing that really disgusts me? It’s that similar situations continue to happen all over this country.

Time and time again I see good people having to turn to their friends on the Internet to ask for support to get care they desperately need–for surgeries, for cancer treatment, for any host of things that could possibly save their lives or at least lessen some goddamn misery. I see good people having to make their own ailments worse because they can’t actually afford to get treated. I see people having to choose between whether they go to the doctor, or whether they go to the grocery to get food.

But apparently we’re supposed to like this because it’s a free market health care system. Because it’s not a socialist/communist/whatever-ist health care system. Because AMURKA.

I not only don’t like it, I am outright disgusted by how certain parties in our government can turn a blind eye to the suffering Americans undergo every day. But apparently it’s the Americans who don’t actually count: the poor, the women, the non-white, the queer.

(And yeah, I don’t want to think about how much more difficult the medical crap Dara and I have been through would have been if we didn’t live in a queer-friendly part of the country.)

Look, I’m not a hundred percent behind Obama. He’s done some things I have massive issues with. But in this, in trying to get some health care to the Americans that need it the most, I’m actually with him. No, I don’t expect it to be perfect. But I’d much rather see the Republicans in the government pull their heads out of their asses and try to work with him to make the system suck less, rather than holding the government itself hostage.

I’ll be remembering this, people. In memory of my mother, whose birthday would have been TODAY, in fact. And in the name of every American who’s had to suffer rather than get the treatment he or she needs. Because this inhumanity has got to stop.

ETA: I see with grim satisfaction that Margaret and Helen are in accord with me on how the Republican part of Congress needs a bunch of emergency headfromassectomies.

ETA #2: Dara points out that our costs during my cancer care went into six figures, not five. Which only drives my point home harder. It took us until well into 2011 until we finally pulled out of how hard that hit us financially.

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

*hug* re your mom.

[annathepiper]

Thank you. *hugs*

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I'm from the UK; I've had socialised medicine all my life. Put that another way, my country invests in its only tangible asset, its population.

Eighteen months ago, I married into America. My wife has multiple sclerosis. Eighteen months in, I am still struggling to understand the basic fact, that the US is prepared to treat its citizens this way. It is incomprehensible to me.

[annathepiper]

Hell, it's incomprehensible to ME and I was BORN HERE.

I've got a young cousin who's been battling stage 4 bone cancer for the last couple of years, and I don't even want to begin to think about how the hell my aunt and uncle are paying for his care. (I THINK they're getting donations, but don't quote me on that.) :(

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

I think he's finally on Medicare, but the medical costs beforehand and the traveling costs and other stuff that isn't covered is still staggering. Plus the fact that he's tried to go back to school and had to drop back out.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I've been following the posts on his CaringBridge site, and the number of times he's been in and out of chemo... AUGH.

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

I'm actually bitterly disappointed that Obama went with a mostly Republican conceived idea for his health care reform in the mistaken idea that if he offered an olive branch they would come to the table to legislate in good faith. When he had the supermajority, he should've said 'fuck 'em' and pushed through a single payer system.

We'd still be seeing the same nonsense but at least it would be over a more comprehensive reform. :/

[annathepiper]

Yeah. And it didn't escape my notice either that the same ideas functioning as "Romneycare" are somehow OKAY because they're championed by a white Republican.

[gazerwolf.livejournal.com]

My father had seizures for the months leading up to his death...thankfully we had insurance or we would have lost him sooner than we did.

I remember the helplessness we felt during his seizures...but I can't imagine the added continual helplessness of having to deal with not being able to get the care he needed.

[annathepiper]

The only mercy here I think is that I was too young to really feel the weight of not being able to get Mom medical care. Mostly it was all about being scared. :( If I'd have had to deal with it at an adult age, I'd still have been scared, but then with the added awareness of "and I can't do ANYTHING to fix this problem".

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

I don't have insurance at the moment and sincerely hoping nothing happens until March, which is when I qualify for Medicare. Luckily I was able to go through an agency for the medicine for my diabetic neuropathy and long acting insulin. The long acting insulin by itself without insulin was going to cost me $250 a month. My doctor started out giving me samples of my short acting insulin he got and was lucky enough that the parent company now sends enough to keep me in supply because of me being on ssi disability and not having insurance.

[annathepiper]

*hugs a Becky*

Will you be looking at the new healthcare.gov site to see if it'll be able to help you? Or are you basically holding out for Medicare at this point?

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

I'll be holding out until Aprl, which is when I can pick up Medicare, because I can barely afford expenses now and have no reserves due to having to get a new to me car after my wreck.

[annathepiper]

*nodnod* Good luck honey. *hugs*

[tckma.livejournal.com]

Before we were married, I could not add my wife to my employer-provided health care (not even as a domestic partner). She has enough medical issues where she cannot work (and therefore cannot get work-provided insurance).

At that point I was able to afford private-market insurance, but she was repeatedly rejected. Her pre-existing condition? An unwillingness to lie about her weight on the applications. Seriously. The rejection letters stopped just short of saying "you're too fat."

This was one reason we got married; so she could see a doctor. Because even though I was willing and able to pay full price for doctors' visits and prescriptions, many doctors would all but hang up the phone when she said she was uninsured.

I don't think Obamacare is the best solution or even a good one. But you know what, it is at least better than what we had. It at least eliminates some of the (in my opinion) criminal practices of the medical insurance industry. I had hoped it would be a small step toward a better health care/insurance system in this country.

And now the government is shut down for no other reason than the Republicans acted like petulant children. And it makes me angry.

I work for a private company that does Federal government contracting. I'm going to work today because my contract has been declared essential. I am thankful for that because my budget is strained enough as it is without unpaid furloughs. However, this will mean lots of people forced to take unpaid time off for an indeterminate amount of time. This will wreak havoc on our already weak economy, and forget about it's shaky recovery now.

[tckma.livejournal.com]

On further thought - I shudder to think what might have happened had we been a homosexual couple. My wife and I were married in January 2011. I live in Maryland, where same-sex marriage was only legalized effective January 1, 2013. That's two more years she would have gone without health insurance.

This also assumes my insurance allows same-sex partner benefits. I'm not so sure it does, given the hassle they have me asking "what if we entered into a domestic partnership" back then.

And this also raises independence issues. Suppose she wanted to stay single. A person should not be required to get married to get health insurance. That is just ridiculous.

The system pisses me off. Sorry for the soap box rant.

Keep in mind the only pre-existing condition was apparent weight issues, as she had not been able to see a doctor at that point. Later doctors said the weight issues were probably due to other things and not eating wrong or not exercising - she eats well and exercises.

[annathepiper]

No worries at all re: soapbox rant--that was the whole point of me making this post, so similar commentary in the comments is only to be expected!

And yes, that the system is biased in favor of married couples ain't fair either.

I am indeed fortunate that Dara and I are in a queer-friendly part of the country. When DOMA was overturned, my workplace promptly asked me, "So you and Dara--you got legally married, right? AWESOME, we'll put you on the married rate for benefits." Because we had in fact gone up to BC to get legally married, as I've posted about, so that got us another hundred and change back on my paycheck.

But there are plenty of queer couples who don't get to do that.

And single people shouldn't have to shell out more to pay for health care just because they're single.

And oh god the fatphobia of the system, too. AUGH. So very not far that your wife got shit for that too. :(

[annathepiper]

I'm glad you at least get to keep working. See mathmuffin elsewhere in these comments for a government employee who's not so lucky. :(

And I'm with you on the fury. OHNOEZ WE MUST SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT BECAUSE OBAMACARE HURTS AMERICANS... except shutting down the damn government HURTS AMERICANS.

[mathmuffin.livejournal.com]

I am a non-essential government employee. Today I am going in to work for a few unpaid hours to fill out the paperwork that says that I know I have been furloughed. Bureaucracy will be bureaucracy. In exchange, I will also receive the paperwork to apply for unemployment benefits if this shutdown lasts long enough.

Time to catch up on my household chores--except for the ones that cost too much, because I don't know how many paychecks I will miss.

[annathepiper]

Ugh. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. :(

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

the last time this happened ('96?) the president's party retook the house in the mid-terms. i think that's the only time that's ever happened before.

i'd laugh myself silly were it to happen in 2014.

[annathepiper]

That would be HYSTERICAL.

[sianmink.livejournal.com]

The way I understand it is that it mostly just levees financial penalties against people who don't have/can't afford an insurance plan, which makes zero sense to me.

[annathepiper]

I haven't looked up the specs because I fortunately am not in a position to have to. I will admit that that part doesn't make much sense to me, either; see previous commentary re: definitely not perfect. But at least trying to offer some plans for people who haven't been able to previously get ANYTHING is inching towards doing something.

I was seeing on Twitter this morning that the new healthcare.gov site is one of the few things actually running what with the shutdown and that apparently it got swamped with traffic. As if a WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE WANTED DATA ON HEALTHCARE OR SOMETHING. Go fig.

[solarbird]

Six figures.

Also, those first few years were on our private Microsoft Alumni group plan.

[annathepiper]

Post edited accordingly. Thanks!

[alinsa.livejournal.com]

I had a girlfriend, a couple years back, who had an AGI on the order of $20k. We ended up taking her to the ER at one point, on the advice of our doctor, where she got a CAT scan (because they were worried about her having a brain aneurism ... eek!)

The bill came out to a bit less than $3000. She was employed, but her employer did not offer insurance, so that amount fell on her to pay.

She was not eligible for government assistance, because she was renting a room from her father, and he made enough that their combined 'household income' was above the limit for assistance. Nevermind that her father was not actually supporting her!

I remember figuring out that this one medical bill amounted to almost exactly 20% of her take-home pay for the year. TWENTY PERCENT. For a single ER visit, necessitated by the possibility of a life-threatening condition. By someone who was gainfully employed.

What. The. Fuck.

How the hell is someone supposed to be able to afford that?

[annathepiper]

PREACH IT.

And given my current medical events, I find this overall point all the more salient.