As the debate over ACA rages, one thing has stayed the same in every radio and TV interview I hear: your rates will go up because of those darn sick people. Those sick people who will finally get insurance, why, those people are just going to make the rates high, unaffordable and just make your life miserable.
There is no real discussion about what other alternative there are for those who have family members with illness, the goal has been to just contend that any plan that gets those with illness health care hurts you.
As someone who cares for a person with a continuous, costly condition, I'd like to say a few words about that.
This is one month's worth of drugs for our son, who suffers from Autism, Bipolar disorder and self harming behavior. Why so many bags? Are there really that many prescriptions? No. The fact is, he takes 4 drugs. But two of those drugs were so expensive that for a while we paid for them only in weeklly cuts.. asking our pharmacy "can we just get 14 pills? We'll come back next week for more." Breaking a prescription into pieces.
My monthly expense for drugs for our son? $1,118. Out of pocket. After his second residential care stay, which was thankfully after he had qualified for SSI and Medicaid for him and only then did this stop being out of pocket. When people heard that we had done this, we had an immediate reaction: why did you do this? You left a good job with a great insurance plan!
Well, first, like many my work insurance plan would not have met the ACA minimums, so calling it "great" would be a bit of an overstatement. But second, like many insurance plans they were able to withdraw funding from many of our son's treatments, citing various stall techniques.
The chant of those who don't like ACA is all the same. "My rates will go up because of those.. sick people!" And those sick people, being not part of your group have become the American Dalits. Untouchable. Unthinkable. Not one of us.
But what long term option do we propose for those who need this kind of medical help but don't have access to it? Making sure they aren't part of the health system you are in doesn't seem very "pro-life", and the outcomes for them without access to health care will range from imprisonment to death.
But we feel better going on the radio and decrying "all those people who don't have insurance who are sick getting on our insurance plan..".. it works for us.
Reality: people who have access to health care aren't rushing into the emergency room for the most expensive treatments.
Reality: those who need help medically will eventually get it.. or, the outcomes will be more expensive to society as a whole, either through unpaid debt or through imprisonment or end of life care.
Reality: as much as the Right Wing loves to portray all of these "sick people" as not being someone you know, let me tell you if you know me AT ALL through this blog, you know someone who has a family member who struggles with medical cost. If I'm the only person you know who cares for someone with an illness, you live a pretty charmed life as the rate at which people are touched by illness or disability is almost 1 in 3.
Let them keep announcing out loud that they want to make sure those people with pre-existing treatment don't hurt your insurance rate by making sure they aren't in your plan. Let them go on TV and radio and stoke the fear that all these sick people will make your costs higher. They can keep that up while study after study tells us that the cost is unlikely to 'skyrocket' as the fear mongers keep proposing.. go talk to someone who cares for a person with illness. Or who is a person with an illness.
And then tell me how open hearted, devout Christian those people are when they work furiously to try and make sure those people stay without help.
Hi. I'm a person who cares for a child with a disability. And next year, we'll have full family coverage.