R i g h t a r d i a: Health Care Stories for America

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Health Care Stories for America

Clinton
Baltimore, MD I am a hard working, middle class, college graduate, and i am being crushed by the rising costs and poor quality of health insurance.

In 2003 I had just started a new job, my old health insurance plan had expired and my new health insurance had not yet started, i was in my probationary 60 day period before benefits begin.

I became very sick one Saturday morning and had a large swollen lump located on my Abdomen just above my groin. My fiancée rushed me to the emergency room, where i was told I had a burst blood vessel in my abdomen and would require emergency vascular surgery.

Three hours later i woke up in the recovery room with some stitches and a $10,000 hospital bill. I left the hospital 45 minutes after waking up and went to work on Monday morning, barely able to walk and in intense pain, because i couldn't afford to miss a single day.

One day with bad luck put me $10,000 in debt while i was already struggling to make a living. I have managed to pay down my debt over the years, but because of it, i have been able to save very little money, cannot buy a home, or even think about taking a chance of making a career change, for fear of losing my meager insurance.

With my current insurance, I pay over $1000 a year in premiums and still must pay a $250 deductible out of pocket to see a doctor. This year i had an injured back, and could not afford to go see a physician, because it was the first week of the month, i had just paid all my bills and did not have sufficient funds to cover the deductible to see a doctor.

I had to wait for my next pay check two weeks later to seek treatment. My fiancée is a waitress, she pays for her own health insurance without any help from her employer. It is very expensive, but after seeing what happened to me, she has struggled to keep up with the rising premiums just to get covered in case of accidents and emergencies.

Last summer my she went swimming in a lake while working at a summer camp in upstate New York. A small cut on her foot became infected and a few days later she found herself in the hospital fighting for her life against a flesh eating bacteria.

After 2 weeks in the hospital, 2 months out of work, 3 surgeries and a skin graft, she had collected a mountain of hospital bills. Her insurance covered about 85-90% of the costs, but when your total bill is in 6 figures that remaining 10-15% can be a staggering amount for a person who works for tips.

The costs of health care and insurance have left us both in debt, unable to buy a house start a family, or save for our future. And we are not alone. We are normal hard working middle class Americans, there are millions just like us, without health insurance or health insurance that is too expensive and whose coverage, if not denied, still leaves you with a mountain of debt.

The once proud middle class is fast becoming a class of indentured servants, working mainly to pay rising health care and credit card bills.