I have spent the last week trying to get two prescriptions filled. Prescriptions I need so I can function, at least semi-normally, on a day-to-day basis. New prescriptions, because my current medications aren’t really doing an adequate job of managing my pain. Call me crazy, but having 10 migraines per month (sometimes more, and sometimes for days on end) isn’t what I’d call effective pain management. My neurologist agrees, so he decided we should try some new medication.
But my insurance doesn’t want to cover these new prescriptions. And do you want to know how much they cost without insurance? $500, for one month’s supply. So I have spent the last week ferrying myself back and forth to the pharmacy, calling my insurance, and trying to get hold of my doctor in hopes that he can convince the insurance the medications are a necessity. I have done this on top of working two jobs, and suffering from two separate migraines in that week’s timeframe.
I am sharing this not because I want pity, or even commiseration; I’m sharing because I want to illustrate how difficult it is for people like me— people who work, but are still barely above the poverty line; people who suffer from chronic, debilitating health problems; people who are trying damn hard but still barely keeping their heads above water, either health-wise, finance-wise, or both— to access the care we need. It’s this hard in our *current* system; a system that, in theory, has concessions, programs, and safety nets for people like me.
In the proposed Republican healthcare plan, those programs would be decimated. People like me would be left holding the bill for hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars worth of medical services and prescription costs every month; a bill we have no hope of paying. Our current healthcare system is not perfect; the last week of my life can attest to that. But the proposed plan would not fix any of the problems that plague that system; if anything, it would make them worse.
It’s easy to ignore the issues this new plan would create if you’re not one of the people negatively affected by it. It’s easy to generalize and rationalize and convince yourself that the people who would suffer under this new plan somehow don’t deserve care. So I’m asking you NOT to generalize; I’m asking you to make it personal. The next time you hear or read about the bill and are tempted to think of the people affected as just an anonymous ‘other,’ I would ask you to think of me instead. Do I matter? Do I deserve to have access to the specialists and medications I need to lead a productive, fulfilling life? If you answered yes, then you need to think twice about supporting the healthcare bill in its current form. And if you answered no, then I guess I would ask you-- why? What is it about me as a person, or my situation, that makes me less deserving of care—of quality of life—than anyone else? What makes any one person more deserving of care than another?
There is no doubt that our system is broken. I could write a dozen posts on the myriad of things wrong, and give examples of how other countries are doing it better. But suffice it to say: the proposed health plan, far from fixing anything, would absolutely destroy the few pieces in place that are actually working. We can do better.
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