What a trip down memory lane. My dad died in January, 2007, and my parents’ very expensive, very good, group health insurance plan gave my mom 30 days to find new insurance. (They owned a small business together. They were the group.) I took time off from work to help her find new health insurance. The only companies that would even talk to us wanted her to sign a waiver, acknowledging exclusion of her pre-existing conditions for the first year. Or maybe it was the first two years, I can’t remember. There was no discounted rate for the exclusion, either.
We eventually found a plan subsidized through the state that would cover her, and she became eligible for Medicare about 18 months later. Health insurance companies are f*€$king evil.
Before the ACA, babies born prematurely was considered a pre-existing condition. My twins were born at 25 weeks and 4 days at the end of 2009 and their medical bills for three months of life-saving care totalled just under a million dollars apiece. They were still in the hospital when Obama signed the ACA into law and I cried knowing that my boys would be able to get health insurance. (I'm crying now just remembering!)
When I was an independent contractor pre-ACA, I couldn't get coverage because 1) I had a mental health condition and 2) a tattoo. (I eventually got signed up at the VA in 2006, something they didn't say I was eligible for when I separated from the army in 1985).
WHY do some people want to go back to that? What sense does it make to have an unhealthy population?
The VA can be not so great, and yet it's still better than nothing. I had the worst experience February 28. I had to be seen for a hand injury 3 weeks earlier, February 8, because it wasn't getting better. The triage nurse wanted me seen within 72 hours, so I just saw some random doctor, not my PCP. He blew my concerns off, didn't even touch my thumb to feel for abnormalities, took an x-ray to check for a fracture, and told me and my husband it was highly unlikely I tore a ligament - the thing I said fit the mechanism of injury and my symptoms.
He told me to keep wearing the cheap Walmart brace I had because "the ones we have here are big and you wouldn't like them" (um, like a real thumb spica brace that I SHOULD have been wearing?) and continue resting it and wait. Four days later, in more pain, I went to a community urgent care and was immediately referred to an orthopedist, who referred me for an MRI and a hand surgeon consult. I DID completely tear my ulnar collateral ligament and it won't heal without surgery.
That doctor at the VA set my healing back by over a month. Maybe he's one of those people that think you shouldn't even get care unless you've seen combat, so he didn't want to help me. I don't know. I should have gone in sooner, but I didn't want to tax a system that is currently under attack. I didn't want to make their job harder even though I'm in constant severe pain. How messed up is that?
2019 I had a drunk driver tear all but one tendon in my shoulder. The HMO scheduled me with a physician’s assistant, a very handsome sporty guy. He completely missed it. A year later I was finally correctly diagnosed (by an actual doctor) but by then it was the pandemic and simple things like MRI were 8 month waits. In that time it only got worse.
The combination of his incompetence and my well-meaning but dangerous self abasement (the service mentality and modesty you showed) turned the whole thing into a much more complicated ordeal than good immediate care would have cost. And it still isn’t right.
We have to retool our thinking about our worthiness to receive excellent healthcare. You paid for it and so did I. It’s not a ‘favor’.
It’s been somewhat more quiet for the last 15-20 years, but the devaluation of female patients has never gone away, and is recently rearing it’s ugly head again.
Wait for the screeching 180° pivot when those dicks figure out that measles can destroy testicles! Mountains will be moved?
What a trip down memory lane. My dad died in January, 2007, and my parents’ very expensive, very good, group health insurance plan gave my mom 30 days to find new insurance. (They owned a small business together. They were the group.) I took time off from work to help her find new health insurance. The only companies that would even talk to us wanted her to sign a waiver, acknowledging exclusion of her pre-existing conditions for the first year. Or maybe it was the first two years, I can’t remember. There was no discounted rate for the exclusion, either.
We eventually found a plan subsidized through the state that would cover her, and she became eligible for Medicare about 18 months later. Health insurance companies are f*€$king evil.
Thank you so much for this!
Before the ACA, babies born prematurely was considered a pre-existing condition. My twins were born at 25 weeks and 4 days at the end of 2009 and their medical bills for three months of life-saving care totalled just under a million dollars apiece. They were still in the hospital when Obama signed the ACA into law and I cried knowing that my boys would be able to get health insurance. (I'm crying now just remembering!)
Thank you for the walk down memory lane.
Thank you so much for putting all this in a concise format. Even with such serious content your art keeps it fun. Genius!
When I was an independent contractor pre-ACA, I couldn't get coverage because 1) I had a mental health condition and 2) a tattoo. (I eventually got signed up at the VA in 2006, something they didn't say I was eligible for when I separated from the army in 1985).
WHY do some people want to go back to that? What sense does it make to have an unhealthy population?
The VA can be not so great, and yet it's still better than nothing. I had the worst experience February 28. I had to be seen for a hand injury 3 weeks earlier, February 8, because it wasn't getting better. The triage nurse wanted me seen within 72 hours, so I just saw some random doctor, not my PCP. He blew my concerns off, didn't even touch my thumb to feel for abnormalities, took an x-ray to check for a fracture, and told me and my husband it was highly unlikely I tore a ligament - the thing I said fit the mechanism of injury and my symptoms.
He told me to keep wearing the cheap Walmart brace I had because "the ones we have here are big and you wouldn't like them" (um, like a real thumb spica brace that I SHOULD have been wearing?) and continue resting it and wait. Four days later, in more pain, I went to a community urgent care and was immediately referred to an orthopedist, who referred me for an MRI and a hand surgeon consult. I DID completely tear my ulnar collateral ligament and it won't heal without surgery.
That doctor at the VA set my healing back by over a month. Maybe he's one of those people that think you shouldn't even get care unless you've seen combat, so he didn't want to help me. I don't know. I should have gone in sooner, but I didn't want to tax a system that is currently under attack. I didn't want to make their job harder even though I'm in constant severe pain. How messed up is that?
2019 I had a drunk driver tear all but one tendon in my shoulder. The HMO scheduled me with a physician’s assistant, a very handsome sporty guy. He completely missed it. A year later I was finally correctly diagnosed (by an actual doctor) but by then it was the pandemic and simple things like MRI were 8 month waits. In that time it only got worse.
The combination of his incompetence and my well-meaning but dangerous self abasement (the service mentality and modesty you showed) turned the whole thing into a much more complicated ordeal than good immediate care would have cost. And it still isn’t right.
We have to retool our thinking about our worthiness to receive excellent healthcare. You paid for it and so did I. It’s not a ‘favor’.
It’s been somewhat more quiet for the last 15-20 years, but the devaluation of female patients has never gone away, and is recently rearing it’s ugly head again.
Wait for the screeching 180° pivot when those dicks figure out that measles can destroy testicles! Mountains will be moved?
Preach, Aubrey!!! Teach........!!!
As always - brilliant. People need to know and you help them do that. Thank you.
50 million people or California, NYC, and Chicago combined