Held hostage by our jobs
The movie “Sicko” gave Michael Moore’s dramatic perspective of our healthcare crisis. My perspective is more limited, but equally real, for any Sarah Palin fans out there.
I had not had much reason to think about the situation until I moved three years ago. Until then, I had been fortunate; I had always had health insurance. Without a job when I moved, I assumed COBRA coverage would be available until I found a job in my new location. Available, yes, but the cost would have put unwanted strain on the family finances.
That reality brought home an interesting awareness: many of us are in a way held hostage by our jobs – in exchange for health care. Or, another perspective, we live a kind of indentured servitude to our employers who provide for our healthcare so long as we are in their service.
My next personal connection to the crisis came when I sought individual health insurance. I have a pre-existing condition that I innocently revealed in my application for insurance. The condition had been well-controlled by medication for many years, so I naively assumed that meant it would not be a serious concern to the insurance company. Innocence is bliss, indeed. The monthly cost for my personal coverage would have amounted to more than the mortgage we had left behind when we moved from our house on Capitol Hill in DC, and more than I expected to earn in our new location. Fortunately, my wife Alice was hired by a company that offered affordable health insurance that covers both of us. So my personal health care status has some stability.
Then I got a part-time job with a company that conducts research for the government regarding medical expenditures and insurance in this country. In my job, I do a series of in-person interviews with families about their health conditions, visits to medical providers, costs of their care, and who pays for that care. Overall, the team of interviewers meets with thousands of families throughout the country. (If you’re interested in learning more about the survey and its data, http://www.meps.ahrq.gov is the place to go.)
My little slice of that work has taught me many things. Among them are these:
- Only the financially privileged take health care for granted.
- People with good health insurance tend to see medical providers more often and have no idea what those visits actually cost. They pay little out of pocket.
- People without medical insurance, including those with substantial means, tend to get charged more.
- Providers in private practice tend to have more flexibility and sensitivity regarding costs.
- The state CHIP/S-CHIP coverage is great for children to age 14, but then what?
- Here’s what: of those between the ages 18 and 25, our 30-year-old research now says that 38% of them have no health insurance. They risk their financial futures every day.
- In the families I have interviewed, that percentage is only slightly less for all those not covered by CHIP or Medicare. In other words, people between 15 and 65 have about a one in three chance of having no private or employee provided health insurance. For them the US health care system is, truly, the “joke”: Don’t Get Sick or Injured.
- I should be generous when I leave tips in a restaurant. One of my interviewees is married to the owner of a restaurant. He would like to offer health insurance to his employees, but can’t afford to do that. She says it’s “the dirty little secret of the restaurant business.” “Hardly anybody you see working in any restaurant has health insurance provided by that employer.”
- For at least 30,000 of the people who die each year, the cause of death is lack of adequate health insurance. They don’t get treated because they have no insurance. That’s the equivalent of at least 5 of the towns with real people, like the town of Wassila, Alaska. Or nearly half the population of Asheville, NC.
- One of the 30,000 who died last year because he had no insurance was Mike Danforth, the 33-year-old son of Leslie Boyd, a friend and a reporter for our local newspaper. She has begun an effort to educate about this problem, collecting stories of people caught in this tragedy, and encouraging the rest of us to badger our politicians to, as she puts it, “put on their big person pants” and work out a solution to this shameful part of the American experience. (You can check out the wonderfully informative and moving website: lifeomike.org)
One other comment/observation: What do the Constitution’s words “provide for the common defense” mean when 30,000 people die annually (more than 10 times the number who died in the 9/11 attacks, or more than 200,000 since then) because they can’t get healthcare – in a country that boasts about its medical research and treatment?
Patient Pals & Family Friends
Life o' Mike has a new peer support program for people newly diagnosed with chronic or serious illness or with a new disability and their caregivers.
Patient Pals are people who have experience with various illnesses and disabilities, who can help someone newly diagnosed or with a new disability work through the fear, frustration, confusion and grief often experienced in the first few months.
Family Friends are there to help caregivers and other family members grow into their new role.
People with new illness or disability fare better when they have a role model -- someone who can help them negotiate their new path in life.
We need volunteers, who are asked to donate a minimum of one hour a week. Training is free and includes information on active listening, ways to help and when to know more help is needed.
And of course, we need funding.
To learn more, call Leslie Boyd at 828-243-6712 or e-mail lifeomike@gmail.com.
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