#pleasedontabolishmyheathcare

[fineartbyjamie]

What life is really like on public aid...

Today congress passed a bill to repeal the affordable care act, and all I can do is sit here in shock and sadness and fear. I know the GOP is once again back pedaling and working on coming up with a plan to replace it rather than just abolishing the whole thing outright, but as I sit here I wonder if any of those members of the GOP have any idea what it's like to actually BE on government assistance? If not, it should be a requirement, for a congressman to survive on minimum wage and government aid for at least two months. Maybe 3. First, let's talk about medical aid (aka Medicaid). Let's talk about the struggles to find doctor's that accept Medicaid, in a bankrupt state with no budget that is getting more and more difficult as doctors can't keep their doors open if they can't pay their employees, insurance, buy supplies, or pay their own bills. Once you actually find a doctor that accepts Medicaid, is taking new patients, AND can get you in before they retire, there is the stigma. You walk in to the office and the front desk clerks give you that disapproving look, like Regina George after you tripped and fell in her path. And heaven forbid you have a smart phone, then you get the "if she can afford an iPhone she should be able to pay for her own health insurance" thoughts dancing across her eyes. Never mind that you scrounged and saved to buy that iPhone on special sale, or that the Apple Watch you cherish was a beloved gift from an after Christmas open box return counter at Best Buy. People truly believe that if you are in need of government assistance you should not have any of the things "normal" people consider an every day item. Once you get called back you start to dread the unavoidable, terror striking gloom of stepping on THE SCALE. Because you can't afford to eat healthy, and you don't have a scale at home so you step on that scale like it's a land mine and you have no idea if it has been deactivated or if it is so old it won't wait for you to step off of it for it to explode. Seated in the room, the nurse checks your blood pressure, which you know is going to be higher than it should because just getting past the office gate keeper is anxiety inducing, let alone facing your doctor. She finishes her prodding and sits in front of her computer to ask those always lovely questions about your health. "Are you still taking that anti-depressant?" "I'm still broke aren't I?" The words hatch and die in your mind as you respond with the polite and civil "yes". "Are you still taking that inhaler like you are supposed to?" "Well, no. Because public aid decided it was too expensive so I'm taking the less effective generic version and it's doing squat for my lungs." "Hmmmmm" she says with feigned concern, clackity clack goes the keyboard in a rapid staccato that seems entirely too long. Finally the doctor comes in, you talk about your problems and she listens intently asking questions about your diet and your exercise. You admit your diet sucks, fresh organic food is expensive, the more additives and preservatives the less a food will cost. She doesn't want to run the tests you ask for because they are expensive and you are, after all, on Medicaid. Finally, you convince her to run the tests you just know deep down will get you some answers on what had been plaguing you for months now. You haven't gone to see the doctor because it is a delicate balancing act to get the time off work or be able to find an appointment time on your lunch break. If you are lucky enough to have a job, otherwise you plan the appointment for when you know you will have the gas or bus fare to get to the appointment. Sometimes getting back is an adventure. She orders the test, and first you have to wait for the hospital to approve your need for the test, then they have to get approval from Medicaid, then they call you to schedule the test..... they have an opening.......in a month.... Let the 125th annual medication games begin! May the odds be ever in your favor. This medication is only covered in this specific format, which has been known to cause fungal infections in your mouth so you need this medication to counter the fungus. Another prescription is completely not approved so you have to look at other brands of it, and hopefully there is a generic version. Wait, you mean this med didn't work for you and now your doctor wants you to try something else? Sorry, you have to wait until it has been 30 days since the order for the other medication went through. Are you an adult? You had better hope you don't need to fill more than four medications at once or something doesn't get covered, wouldn't it be nice if it were the cheapest tribute that you have to pay for? Sorry, no it's the $60 prescription that is the exact same as that over the counter allergy nasal spray that costs $20 (which you still can't afford, unless you can sacrifice something else from your meager budget.....toilet paper, maybe you can find a half roll someone used when they were sick because tissues are a luxury item, so is effective cold medicine, and vitamins). But you had better find a way to pay for it before you go back in to see your doctor or she will try to explain to you once again how important it is to be consistent with your medications... and auto-refill? Not in your dreams! How would Medicaid survive paying for all of those meds that people don't really need every month?! This way, if they don't refill them it's less money out of the program!! This also goes for equipment supplies, technically a sleep mask for a cpap machine is supposed to be replaced once a month. I've had mine for a year. "Why yes, I DO have acne right on the lines of where my sleep mask seals around my face, yes it is painful, yes I wash daily." There is just only so much soap and water can do for an aged yellowing mask discolored from the oils in your skin. But hey, at least you don't have to worry about calling in sick, right? Because you can TOTALLY afford to take a day off. You would never zombie shuffle in to work dripping snot like a pug with a sinus infection just because you can't afford the time off. You would never drink a gallon of coffee to stay awake and ease the shards of glass coating your throat....HI!!!!!WELCOMETOBURGERHEAVENHOWCANIHELPYOUTODAY?!?!?!!!!! NOIMJUSTREALLYREALLYREALLYREALLYEXCITEDTOBEHERETODAY!!OOHWHATSTHATOVERTHERE?!?!ACHOO!!OMGTHATISTHECOOLESTHAIR!! The worst part is that if you miss more than one day of work you have to bring in a doctor's note. So not only is gatekeeper Regina George judging you for wearing sweatpants on jeans day but now she gives you that disapproving glare like she "just knows you are overreacting and don't need to waste the tax payers hard earned dollars for every sniffle and sneeze" you can't sit with us, your tax dollars don't count because your daddy didn't invent toaster strudels. In reality, Medicaid saved my life. I had to push and push and push for all of the expensive tests before they found the dead organ filling my innards with infection so thick my intestines were a jumbled mess. Because I went a year without insurance, the infection was so bad my "routine" 45 minute surgery took 4 hours and my outpatient procedure turned into a 4 day stay in the luxurious glamorous hospital being released just in time to see my family for thanksgiving dinner. My surgeon, who had taken one look at me and decided I was just fat and lazy and my gallbladder attacks were the results of eating unhealthy fast food and no exercise, spent 4 hours burning out infection and dissecting my organs from one another nicking a major bile duct in the chaotic half melted gummy bear like mess my liver had become. I have no idea how much the antibiotics used to treat my sepsis cost. When my surgeon finished, he marveled to my family about the tolerance I must have had to live with a dead organ inside me for years. When you have no choice but to keep going working that menial job you can't call off for every ache and pain. I developed my pain tolerance because the system had failed me and I had no choice but to go through life in immeasurable pain. Because the judgement you would get for needing pain medications to function just isn't worth it, or you are allergic to anything covered anyway. If I had continued without insurance I would never have gone to the doctor, at some point the sepsis would have progressed to a point where I finally became too ill to get out of bed, hopefully I wouldn't have just died in my sleep. My liver would have long since been damaged by the infection so even if I had survived the sepsis I would have had to learn to manage life without a liver, because disability isn't enough to support a single income family. All of this is assuming I lived. All of this is assuming I didn't die before I was severe enough to forgo the credit score suicide of going to urgent care without any insurance. Congratulations Medicaid, the best thing I can say is that I'm not dead, in spite of every road block and skeptical specialist or technician I encountered while literally being poisoned from the inside.