Uninsured

We should all feel the burden a few of us have felt. We would be better if we did.

I know how this feels. We were a young family with cheap, weak, barely any health insurance. I was a medical student. My wife worked nights as a janitor.

We bought the cheap health insurance through the medical school. But it cost more than we paid in rent.

Our doctor accepted the weak payment. But then our baby got sick. And the insurance would not cover “preexisting conditions”. She was born with this problem, and it was making her very sick.

So I know the burden of this lousy health care system we have cobbled together. It seems it’s just to make the doctors rich, and the health insurance CEO’s and the hospital CEO’s and enrich the venture capital companies buying and selling our risk pools.

Nobody seems to care about us. Not Joe Biden, not Donald Trump, not any Democrat or Republican I could name. Surely none of Idaho’s congressional delegation gives a shit about the basic comfort, the basic need for decent health care access.

Idaho ranks 12^th in the nation for the most uninsured citizens. And we expanded Medicaid. Almost all the states 11 and up, didn’t. We did what we could. More needs to be done.

Over 12% of Idahoans have NO HEALTH INSURANCE. One in eight. Next time you’re at McDonalds, look around. If you are reading this, I’ll bet you have health insurance. Lots don’t. Maybe it’s not fashionable in this culture we are developing to think about those around us who might have less.

But when you have a sick baby, who keeps getting infections, fevers, damaging her organs, what are you supposed to do?

The Christian Nationalists would say charity.

And that’s what we got. Charity. They scanned, diagnosed, and hospitalized and operated. And the social worked sat down with us and said, “Don’t worry, this will be paid for.”

Charity is wonderful. We felt blessed. The burden dropped off. We received more care for our infant than I could have gotten from selling our car, my motorcycle, my medical books. They would have been a drop in the bucket.

So, is your vision that we should have a system that grants charity? If a deemed recipient is granted, they get the largess of the wealthy, the endowed?

I wonder what would have happened if me and Martha had been East County trailer trash. Charity?

Poor communities have Go Fund Me’s and jars by the check out.

The burden we have created to access health care harms.

The young family with the sick child might wait. Charity is a burden, and unreliable, though honorable.

It seems like we are afraid to throw open the doors.

None of you conservative Republican Idahoans want to have this conversation. Heck, most my wealthy liberal Democratic friends don’t either. What’s the problem? It’s just ten percent you idiot, why are you worried about them?

Because I was in that ten percent. I’m not now, but I was. And I remember.

You probably know a similar story. Doesn’t this make you want to solve this?

Our Governor appointed a Director of the Department of Health and Welfare who cut kids off Medicaid health insurance at a record rate. Idaho jumped to SECOND in the nation (behind Texas) for uninsured children. Are you proud Brad?

Maybe you are happy about this. Maybe you think people shouldn’t have children unless they can provide for them.

This is a very important conversation we need to be having. I don’t mean to offend you. I mean to inspire you. We have a very serious problem right here. And it doesn’t seem any of our politicians we elect based on our Fox News or CNN feed give a shit.

It’s time we decided what’s important. And we let them know.