Ever broken your arm and had a $10,000 bill that you couldn’t pay? Or avoided going to the hospital because you are uninsured and couldn’t foot the hefty bill?
Right now Congress is considering sweeping health care legislation that would drastically reform our system, make health care accessible to all of us and keep costs down. But here’s the deal, legislators in Washington think that young people don’t care or have a stake in this game. We need to show that young Americans are a huge constituency that want and need reform now.
Have you gone without care because it was too expensive? Are you unemployed and just got kicked off your parent’s plan? Are you self-employed and struggling to afford coverage? Do you hate your job but can’t leave because you won’t have health care?
Share your story and we’ll make sure our point of view is in the debate that is so vital to all of us.
~Mary, Rock the Vote
Tags: Congress, health care
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Mary Bio: @Rockthevote Email the author at: blog(at)rockthevote.com |
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“We need to show that young Americans are a huge constituency that want and need reform now.”
Uhhhh, young people need the government to stop spending money and allow free markets so the politicans won’t bankrupt the country, destroy the currency, and distort market behavior.
You want to know what America’s youth thinks about our health care system? I am 24. I don’t know if that means I am young or somewhere in between. All I know is that I work 12hour days for an ambulance
company and I am uninsured. I haven’t had insurance since I turned 18.
Since then I have avoided seeing doctors like the plague. I barely make enough money to live on much less pay on the medical debt I have accumulated over the last several years due to injuries and illnesses.
I just had to have a wisdom tooth pulled last month. It has been broken for four years and always hurt. I have three more broken ones that will have to come out eventually, but I will probably wait and deal with the infection and pain. Why? I can’t afford to live and be healthy! I don’t have parents to lean on, move in with, or mooch off of. I work hard to get what I have. And I have found that health care is not something I can have right now.
I am just one person, one story. My friends are in the same boat.
Working minimum wage jobs full time to try to make ends meet doesn’t really allow any money to be saved for medical expenses.
One case in point, a friend with a hereditary medical condition that causes swelling and intense pain in her face has no insurance. She can’t afford medication that could help. She swells to the point that she couldn’t eat for 12 days. It got so bad that she had to be seen in the ER at four in the morning. They gave her a shot that put her out for about sixteen hours. She missed one day at work and got fired. Now not only is she in debt but shes also unemployed and can’t find a job.
Another case, my uninsured husband has a heart condition. I say a condition because no one will tell us what is wrong with him. He is only two years younger then his mother was when she was diagnosed with serious cardiac problems that caused a ripple effect in her entire body. She lived in pain for decades while each vital organ slowly shut down, as a result of both her condition as well as medical procedures that went wrong. She died four years ago. God rest her soul.
My husband has almost constant, severe chest pain, hypertension, and an obvious fluctuation in his heart rhythm. The cardiologist told him that he is too young for heart problems and not to worry about it. Too young. Despite his family history. Despite the same signals that were found in his mother before she got really sick. Despite his test results. Despite the pain.
Now, please understand that I know there is help out there for some who need insurance. There are state programs and clinics that can help some people. We are not those lucky people.
We are the ones who work our butts off, only to find that we make too much to get assistance. We are the ones you don’t see in a military uniform. No, we wear polo shirts and name tags instead. We are the ones who don’t have kids because we want to wait until we can take better care of them, rather then draining the broken welfare system. We are the ones who don’t own homes or stocks. We can’t afford it. We are the ones who can’t even dream about saving for retirement, but pay for our parents SSI each week knowing we will have to work ourselves to the grave.
There are ways to make the system work for you. I have seen it done many times. Good people use it. Hardworking people use it. I could have insurance (and food stamps) if I had kids. I could have my wisdom teeth pulled, get a shot, eat three meals a day, see a doctor when I need to, and start taking my medications again.
The only problem is that I don’t want to rely on the government to live. I would rather work my butt off and deal with the homelessness, the illnesses, and depression then to take a hand out. When all you have left is your pride, whats pride worth to you? Everything.
If Washington really wanted to help us, then they would have already. The problem isn’t our lack of need. It isn’t our lack of blogs or prayer. Its our lack of worth.
We fit into the back bone of the country. We work our crappy little jobs and struggle to stay afloat. We are the waitresses getting paid less then three bucks an hour. We are the drivers staring at the long road. We are EMTs and Paramedics who show up in your time of need. We are cashiers and stock help. We are the cleaning crews and data entry slaves. We wash your dog and cook your food. We are the service industry. Money flows through the companies we work for but not our pockets.
We have nothing to offer either party. No bribes. No kickbacks. No campaign funding. In a system that encourages corruption by the almighty dollar, we are effectively worth the lint in our pockets.
What would I do? What would I change? I don’t know. I would like to see health care become somewhat affordable, but I don’t want to see the government digging us into a financial hole that our grandchildren will face. I would like to see stronger reform within the health care industry. I would like everyone to take a step back and focus on the core issues. Not the effects but rather to examine the cause. There is no incentive for big medical corporations to lower prices to a level where we can reach. There is however plenty of bailout money unaccounted for. (How about a little transparency here?)
The world is run on the hunger for bigger profits, and “We the (little) people” don’t tag the radar anymore. What ever happened to a healthy middle class? Maybe one day things will be better. Who knows? Maybe my grandchildren won’t have to chose between rent and medicine. Maybe even, somehow, one day I can look back at this time in our country with a little more contentment then a heavy sigh. I wish.
Wishes don’t feed the economy or pay the bills. They definitely don’t house you or provide you with medical attention. They don’t put food on your plate or drive you to work. I wish that things were easier all around but its going to take a lot of work to get us there. And wishing is getting us nowhere.