For a long time I thought I was a conservative, foolish and naive I see now. Disabled, I didn't want to believe the system was "broken." But the near loss of my mother from a heart attack and the horror my family had to go through because she didn't have insurance, opened my eyes.
Now I'm new to this Dailykos thing, so when I'm on here I try and gobble up as much as my pitiful eyeballs can read. Today I came across Nyceve's diary posting about health care. The piece immediately brought to my mind of my mother's heart attack last December and what the family had to go through. Trying to help her and go through the system made me realize how wrong I was on many things and how we really needed to fix things.
I'm a recovering conservative, plain and simple. Though I won't lie to you, there are still some ideas that have stayed with me that may (not sure) be considered "right" like a strong military. But, hopefully, I have shed that one big thing that many conservatives hold on to or shall I say blind them with. That is the total disregard of the ideas and opinions of those not like themselves, that feeling that they are "the true American and the others must be stopped." Essentially, conservatives do harbor what President Bush once said, "you're either with us, or against us."
For many years, I was a Republican, a solid one. Introduced to the party and it's politics by my father's boss, a young Skokie business woman named Debbie. She introduced me to Rush almost two decades ago, along with the Wall Street Journal and the National Review. Over the years, I donated money to Republican or conservative causes, and for a brief moment I was a member of the religious right by being a 700 Club member
As the years went on though, I began to have questions about faith and public policy. Like the founder of Daily Kos, I wondered about the ramped greed. Remember, they taught me to love my country, and as a natural consequence I became somewhat of a nationalist. So I asked, why NAFTA? Why allow our companies to build products overseas instead of here? "It’s for a greater good, free flow of ideas and markets will in the end give America an upper hand" I was once told by some apparatchik at a New Trier Republican Party dinner that they held in October. Still, though, I had this growing doubt inside of me. When it came to healthcare, though like an idiot, I believed the mantra: socialized healthcare bad....market based solutions good.
I was born disabled, scoliosis and a whole bunch of other things. I had insurance growing up, from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, which paid for over 100 surgeries. Then around, 18 or so, the premiums reached a point we could not afford, approaching the $1000/mo mark. Losing BCBS of IL, it was very difficult in obtaining new insurance from folks like Humana or the others. It was around this time, that my meager brain came to realize that something could be wrong. Eventually, I had to go on Medicare and Medicaid, reducing my income potential (I had gone on Social Security, and the local Medicaid office claimed that they count that towards your $720/mo income limit.). Perhaps I deserved this for believing in a market based health system, poetic justice I guess.
Fast forward to one year ago, shy of a week away from Christmas. My mother had started a new job at Home Depot. A legal immigrant from Mexico, she had been on and off service jobs since 1985 when her job at a local manufacturing plant was shipped off to Asia. When McDonald's cut the hours of most of the employees there, she took the job at the big box store, actually a company hired to do the cleaning at a Home Depot to be exact. Their health insurance was only available after 9 months on the job and was costly (the premiums would've gobbled up almost half her paycheck). One morning, coming home from her shift, she walked into the house and sat down. Getting up to get something to drink, she collapsed, complaining of chest pains.
The paramedics said she was possibly suffering from a heart attack. This came to a shock to us, as my mother was a health nut. Soon we were at Lutheran General Hospital, once a community-based medical center now owned by the Advocate Healthcare Group. They quickly rushed her in; my 82 year old father was in constant panic mode. He knew she didn't have insurance, and while he worried about his "chapata" (that's Spanish for short legs), he knew the family would get crucified with medical bills.
They ended up doing that procedure where they put a stent into an artery or vein (not sure) and some other minor things, staying in the hospital for a total of 3 days. The final bill for three days was $67,000. $50,000 was for just the hospital room stay (I kid you not on this), the remainder was the bill from the heart doc and the blood testing folks. This was pure insanity; the hospital should charge more than the doctor that worked on her? What madness is this? And $67k?!?
Wow, this is a long diary post, forgive me. Let me speed this up. For the next following weeks then months, my father had to submit paperwork and past tax and income statements to the hospital. My father ended up have something of a nervous breakdown and hat in hand literally wept before that hospital board. It wasn't an act; he actually felt shame he had to beg for them to lower the price.
In the end, the doctor withdrew his bill as a charity case, and the hospital shaved off $48k of their end of the bill. My father had to make some payments, and return for a review. There was no relief in helping pay for her medicine, my father’s savings was already non-existent, had to go into debt to pay for pills. In March, they finally forgave the debt. Watching both of my parents degrade themselves finally did for me. When I saw my father, a veteran of the North African campaign during WW2 and a man who all his life went out of his way to help anyone, break down (not just in tears) before a group of suits who seemed to be enjoying the show, made me extremely angry.
I had registered as a Democrat in 2000 when W defeated McCain and my vote was simply a protest against the man who didn't deserve the nod. But now, this incident fueled inside of me that finally broke that wall of hesitation on those doubts. No longer a protest against that idiot, I found myself questioning everything. Perhaps this is shameful, as I should have seen it before, but I was foolish and stupid. Over the months everything I held dear I questioned, often coming to the conclusion that my previous beliefs were wrong. My primary source of this fire was healthcare.
How many others, like my parents, are going through this, I often asked. In a country we supposedly label a super power, how dare we claim this label when we can't even take care of ourselves. Once again, forgive me for making this long. And if you’re wondering, yes, I’m still angry...we need universal insurance coverage!