I remember staring at the back of the ambulance, its reflective words and striping lit by my headlights, as I followed it to the hospital. I could see my wife in the back, riding with our newborn son, headed to a pediatric intensive care unit after the little guy lost an alarming amount of weight in his first week on Earth.
I felt the weight of despair coupled with fear and an enormous amount of guilt. What had gone wrong?
Turns out, nobody knew, precisely. After 10 days in the hospital, our little guy was healthy as a horse, and physicians were left scratching their heads. After our child had been subjected to every form of test known to man, it was simply chalked up to “failure to thrive.†If they did discover any actual cause, one doctor told me, it would be so rare they’d have to name it after our son.
We left the hospital relieved. He’s been a normal, healthy kid ever since.
If that were the end of the story, it’d be pretty great. But as we finally set about the process of starting our lives as a young, happy family, health care providers and the insurance company began debating how much one of the worst, most terrifying experiences of our lives should cost us. Well, that’s not entirely true. The insurance company only entered the fight after we insisted that it do so. If I remember correctly, it was pretty willing to just pay nothing at first.
When all of the back and forth ended, it was determined that we owed the hospital and a cluster of other medical operations the sum of an inexpensive new car. We’re still paying it off, as our son approaches 7 years of age. If we ever miss a payment, we are threatened with legal action.
And I know people who have it way worse.
Our health care system has never been quite right. I remember not being able to see a doctor regularly for an ongoing health matter in my 20s, because it was dubbed a pre-existing condition. Again, that’s not entirely accurate. I mean, I could see the doctor, if I was willing to pay the full fee, inflated for the inevitable insurance adjustments for people who did have the coverage.
If nothing else, the Affordable Care Act got rid of that. Of course, many attorneys general are working to dismantle that meager protection right now.
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Now we’re focused on my wife’s treatment for her illness. Given that it’s a literal matter of life and death, we’re not thinking about the financial side of things right now. But I’m sure it will be a battle to get everything to a reasonable amount (if that phrase has any real meaning in health care anymore) once the bill comes due.
And as sure as this is happening to us, it’s happening to millions of other Americans every day.
For a long while, I didn’t bellyache about our health care system too much. That’s because I didn’t really use it. That’s sort of how it’s designed to work in the United States, or so it seems.
But after 40, as my wife likes to say, the “check engine†light flicks on. I’m one of those people who is going to get whatever test a doctor tells me to get. But I have to wonder how much longer Americans will tolerate a system that punishes us for using it.
A study published this month in the American Public Journal of Health found that 66.5 percent of bankruptcies in the United States are caused by health care costs. That amounts to 530,000 families per year. Experts say the average family can’t afford health insurance that will actually cover them if they have a major illness or serious medical emergency.
Is it me, or does that sound insane? What are we paying ever-increasing health insurance premiums for, if it doesn’t even cover you when you need it? What a racket. At least when you pay the mafia, they actually protect you.
I don’t pretend to know what the answer is. I don’t know if it’s Medicare-for-all or some other sort of government-run system like the rest of the developed world seems to have figured out. I do wonder why we haven’t figured it out if they have. I’m guessing the answer is that it would cost those with undue influence loads and loads of money.
Not that it’s particularly helpful, but I do know what the answer isn’t. It isn’t robbing people of coverage for pre-existing conditions. It isn’t a return to the days when insurance companies called all the shots. And it isn’t what we have now, either, where the message is “just don’t get sick†or “make sure you’re independently wealthy if you do.†We cannot continue under a system where the cost of health care is so prohibitive that it deters people from actually seeking medical treatment or mental health services.
That, more than anything, might be the straw that breaks the back of the middle class in the United States. This is a crisis that the average American knows all too well. Unless something substantial is accomplished, it won’t long before torches and pitchforks are involved.
