Fixing what's broken

For a good portion of my early 20s, I went without health insurance. I worked for a small, family owned business whose owners could simply not afford to insure their employees. Additionally, through the magic of bureaucracy and red tape, I was "making too much money" ($7.25/hour) and had "been insured to recently" (seriously) to obtain health insurance through Minnesota Care. What this meant for me was that going to the doctor was simply not an option.
As I've spoken about in this blog, I was recovering from an eating disorder at this time. I remember waking up one day right after I quit school, when I was living alone in my parent's house. The best way I can think to describe the experience I had is to say that my heart was just not working. It would start by beating too fast then would slow down, almost to stopping point. I couldn't breath, was having serious chest pains and would black out every time I tried to stand up. My first thought was to try and call one of my friends and then I started thinking about what exactly an emergency room visit would cost me. I didn't have any credit cards, no savings account and only about $250 in my checkbook. I could have called my parents but they were in another state and quite frankly, don't have that kind of money either. So I didn't call anyone. I just went back to bed and slept all the way through until evening.
I think back on this now and realize exactly what could have happened to me upon falling back to sleep that day. I think about it a lot actually. And what I think about also is what a wake up call that particular incident was. Right afterwards, I started to do research on eating disorder recovery. What it would entail, what steps I would have to take first, where I could go for information and to talk to someone. But as I was going through this research, I realized that there was going to be cost involved. Sure, there's the library and I found some meetings I could go to but what I had was a disease that required immediate medical attention and followup care from trained professionals. Trained professionals who would have been available to me only if I had some way of paying their costs. Which I didn't. So, although I was at a very important place and ready to take a step toward my own survival, I did not have the resources to do so.
I am fortunate beyond words to have survived that time in my life. And even though I have insurance today, I've had to juggle, make some choices and sacrifice things that are not covered under my plan and are completely unaffordable on their own. But I am lucky. There are people in my life who can tell story after story of struggling to find a way to pay for everything from basic health care and medications to emergency situations, health problems that require long term care and recovery that has been stifled by lack of available funds. The most painful of these stories is that of my friend from high school Nora, who I've written about here and who passed away this last spring from a disease she may have been able to survive had she been covered by health insurance and been able to afford a crucial follow up visit to her doctor. (You can read more about that story here: Nora's Story

One of the most basic messages of the religion I grew up in, a religion that about 70-80% of the population claims to follow, is "take care of each other". And that is not exclusive to one belief system. I have to believe that at our best, it is a basic human instinct. There are people living in this country who need our help to keep themselves and their families healthy and we have not only the power to give it, but leadership that's willing to help us do so. Lets take this step forward.

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