I talked to a woman today who's losing her daughter to breast cancer. We'll soon have another preventable death and another set of motherless kids.
Let's call the daughter Holly. Holly has four children. Holly got divorced. Holly had no health insurance. So when she felt a lump in her breast, Holly didn't go to the doctor. There would have been the visit, then referral to a specialist, then all sorts of tests. That kind of stuff is expensive. She'd had a lump that wasn't malignant before. Maybe she would get lucky again, she hoped. Maybe she could save some money she and the kinds really needed.
But maybe didn't happen this time. When Holly's mother finally found out she told her to go; she would pay for it. By then several months had gone by. The news was bad. The cancer is in both breasts and the lymph system. Holly was told she had only weeks to live, no more than a month.
But Holly is a fighter. She's a former top high school athlete and still has a competitive streak. Her mother is going to borrow money for a desperate operation. They're going to remove both breasts, a lot of skin and many lymph nodes. Then she'll have massive radiation. There will be a lot of sickness and excruciating rehab. The prognosis? This will probably delay her death by two or three years. As extensively as the cancer has spread there's almost no hope of getting it all. It's probably in her thoracic organs. But there might be a 1% chance of longer-term survival. And a couple of more years for the kids to have a mother will be good, too. After all, the youngest is only three.
On a national news show yesterday I saw a wealthy attorney whining about the Obama proposal to let income taxes for those earning at least $250,000 a year return to their pre-Bush levels, going up 4% to fund a $600+ billion reserve to get a national health insurance program off the ground. He complained it would "destroy my American dream." Cry me a river, bub. Take one more DUI case a year if you're so down about paying an average extra $1,100 in taxes after deductions out of your $300,000 income. What about Holly's American dream? What about her kids? What about the 50 million (and rising) other Americans in the same boat? How many more thousands must die for no good reason? I often wonder what planet people like that attorney come from.
3 comments:
I like the passion, Steve. On a more pedestrian level, how many decisions are made by both employers and employees about hiring, firing, quitting or not quitting not over the job itself but over the needed health benefits? Tying health benefits to employment skews the labor pool in all the wrong directions.
What an excellent comment, Don. I think even corporate America may be coming to the realization that our employment-based system puts them at a distinct competitive disadvantage. Your reasoning is most insightful from both the employer's and employee's perspectives.
I hate the American healthcare system with a seething fiery passion rivaled only by Hell itself. I have never seen an accumulation of inept, self-serving bastards this side of the Atlantic. Had I not had the amazing military insurance I do, we would be indebted almost to servitude to those vultures. And, in regards to insurance, the expense you have to pay to even get coverage is mind boggling. When I started working for the county (birds of prey in their own right), I was appalled at the cost for basic insurance with a $1000 deductible for my small, healthy family of 4. It figured out to be a third of my paycheck. One third. Considering we are the lowest paid employees in our occupation category in the surrounding 4 counties, you'd think they'd be a little more lenient on the cost there, but we already know their policy on self servitude.
I also can not begin to explain how many times they try to pull one over on you. I had one particular hospital decide to charge me for, threaten to send me into collections for, and accept payment for a $1500 bill. I came to find out from my insurance company that the hospital had already been paid in full and I only owed them $27 for, get this, 6 pills of motrin.
It is disgusting in every form of the word and the fact that people, such as Holly and my aunt refuse treatment because of the gross medical expenses that would overwhelm their families.
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