I was told that because I was a full-time student I didn't qualify. I was told that if I could go to school full time, I could work full time - the assumption being that if I had a full time job, I would either have health insurance through my employer or I would be able to afford health insurance. Without a degree, the sort of work I could get would be an entry level, unskilled position at minimum wage. Try paying for high risk health insurance on that income. Those were my options - stay in school, finish my degree and become an asset to my country, or drop-out (student loans in tow) and take a minimum wage job and hope that an employer would allow me to work full time, assuming they even offered health insurance. I wasn't about to sacrifice my education. In high school, I was an honor student and graduated at 16. I was on the Dean's List, doing research in a lab on campus and had even had one of my experiments published in paper in a virology journal - would my best contribution to my country be to take a job at Taco Bell? I didn't think so. I stayed in school and I went without health insurance. I went without medical care. I didn't have my heart looked at. I chose food and shelter.
I had joked that the only way I would ever get health insurance would be if I got pregnant. One errant ovulation and that's exactly what happened. I applied for Medicaid. I was approved, but because of clerical errors on the part of government workers, I didn't get coverage until the day I had my son. I still have never been reimbursed for the money his father and I paid out of pocket for the medical care I needed while pregnant. I suppose that's another clerical error.
I finally had my heart looked at - turns out I do have leaky valves. I finally went to the dentist - I had fillings that had degraded years ago and had to have some painful work done.
Fast forward...
My son is going to be 18 months old soon. His father and I split up, I moved out, I met someone else and we're living together. Medicaid sent me some paperwork to fill out. I needed to update my information. They want my boyfriend's financial information, his pay stubs, a statement from his employer. They want to know how much money he makes because his income now counts as my household income. Their income guidelines will disqualify me and my son because of what my boyfriend earns. I will lose my health insurance in 3 days. My son will, too.
If I were married and it was possible for me to get health insurance through my husband's employer, I would understand why his employment would affect my ability to get assistance. But I'm not married. And there is no way for me to get health insurance. Is my boyfriend responsible for my health insurance? I don't think so. Even if he was, there is no way he could afford the several hundred dollars a month it would cost. Is he responsible for my son's health insurance? I don't think anyone could justify saying he is. And yet, his finances disqualify my son.
So, this year, I won't be able to get my heart checked. Because my local Planned Parenthood has lost its funding, I won't have any help getting my annual check up. Lucky my boyfriend had a vasectomy, or I would be scrambling to try to afford birth control, too. I'd have to scrape by to afford birth control, but if I got pregnant again, I'd have health insurance. Nice.
If you have health insurance, you're lucky. It has nothing to do with skill and nothing to do with character. Quite simply, you got lucky.
Why is health care a luxury but public education a right? Why does my son have a right to be educated but not a right to go to the doctor? Are his future aptitude in math and English more important than his health?
Why do we have the right to call 911 when our house is on fire? We can deliberately set fire to our homes, call 911, and the tax payers will pay to put that fire out. But when I had to have an emergency appendectomy, that was all on me. $10,000 all on me. I was 18, unemployed and had to have emergency surgery. Guess I should have gone to work at Wal-Mart, given up on going to college, and worked to pay off that bill at the hospital.
Instead, you want to know what I did? I never paid. You know what else? I don't even care who got stuck with that bill. The hospital? Good. They can afford it. The taxpayers? Good. I'm going to school to be an asset to my country, I think I deserve a helping hand.
So next time my son gets an ear infection, and I can't afford to take him to the doctor, I guess I'll be lining up in the emergency room with the rest of the uninsured, the marginalized, the ugly underclass that seems to have been left out of this American ideal of the pursuit of happiness.
There is a distinction, and an important one, between the idea of "freedom to" and "freedom from." We have freedom to vote, to own a gun, to voice our opinions. But what of freedom from? Freedom from ignorance, disease and poverty? These are culture-killers. These can destroy a nation. These cripple free minds and silence open discourse. These are antithetical to democracy. Liberty is built on these twin principles, the freedom TO and the freedom FROM and to neglect one is to endanger liberty itself. Liberty cannot be a luxury of the rich. Health cannot be a commodity.
8 million American children do not have health insurance. 8 million. A study done by John Hopkin's researchers showed than a child in the hospital is 60% more likely to die if he or she does not have health insurance. We are the most powerful nation in the world and yet we fail to provide basic liberties and I argue that if we continue to fail to provide a most rudimentary liberty to our citizens, we will not be able to maintain that position. And we will not deserve to.
