Why Affordable Health Insurance Matters

With all of the recent events around the Health Care Mandate, aka Obamacare, I’ve considered chiming in on the topic.

Nearly 22 years ago I was single, working a full and a part time job, and did not have health insurance. My full-time employer was a small company of only 15 employees and did not offer any benefits. I had lost the insurance that I had with my first wife in the course of the divorce and even if I could have access to a policy on my own, I could not afford it. The divorce and paying off our bills resulted in my living from paycheck to paycheck.

At one point I was resigned to packing a few things in my car and that would be my home. Sleeping in cheap food and lived a very simple life in a small run-down flat in a rear duplex behind an apartment building. I had to make the decision between eating and paying the rent or buying health care insurance. So, I tried to stay healthy as best as I could and prayed that I would not need medical care.

Then, I awoke in the middle off the night with a very sharp pain in my right eye. It felt like someone had stabbed me with a knife. I tried eye drops but could not even open my eye to do so. With total panic going on and knowing I could not afford it, I had to go to an emergency room of what was then a county ran hospital. I had heard that they could not refuse you for treatment even if you could not afford it. With one hand over the injured eye and fighting to see through my eyes watering and the pain, I drove several miles to help.

Once there, they determined that I had somehow torn the cornea of my eye. I was given some drops and I admit I took the bottle of drops that was on the tray that the doctor used to numb my eye so at least he would be able to take a look at it.

Not a major medical event, but painful. Then, came the bill. An emergency room visit is costly. I had to work out with the county that I would pay as much as I could to just keep paying something and keep a collection agency from hounding me, or worse yet, legal action taken against me. I had a bill of over 1000 dollars and I was paying them 20 dollars a month. I’d skip a couple of meals to make the payment.

So, I understand what it’s like to be a burden on the health care system.

Oddly enough, being a true lefty, it was hard for me to support the idea of mandated health care when it was first proposed by the Republicans during the term of President George W Bush. I felt it was an imposition to require that each person have health insurance.

When President Barak Obama came around and proposed the same basic idea, I saw it differently. The law that is now being debated by the Supreme Court has features to it that actually work. The law does not say that even if you can’t afford it, you have to try to find a way to pay for it, it helps people get support by things such as government subsidized medical care.

I know that some on the right feel that it’s a bad idea. I just want to remind them that we the founder of the Christian Church, Jesus said that we are our brothers keeper.

Having said that, I feel that it’s best to put every person in a health insurance program of some type. That way, no one becomes a burden on everyone else as I did when I had to go the emergency room. Someone had to pay for my medical care while I slowly paid it back, and sometimes people don’t.

Who? The rest of those who consume medical services through higher medical bills, higher insurance rates.

We’re not talking about free health care for everyone as is done in Canada and elsewhere.

One of the things that happens when you lose a job is they give you “Cobra” which should be called “Health Insurance You Can’t Afford”. The rate is usually 3 times what you had been paying. So, you can pay in some cases over 1000 dollars in a month for family health insurance. What makes this even worse is that it comes at a time when you are living on 1/3^rd of the income you had when you were employed, until even your unemployment insurance runs out or you decline a less than suitable job and it is taken away.

Do we need everyone in American in an affordable health insurance program?

You betcha!

An open letter...

A couple of weeks ago I restarted this blog and then came up with a few ideas for what to post as the return to blogging after the announcement that I was back.

I thought about a number of subjects, most of them that you might in some way be able to relate to.

A dead motorcycle and the frustration with mechanical objects and how costly they can become. Or, the incident that came when I took the bike to a local repair shop and it nearly resulted in a fistfight. 

My laptop going in for repair a second time, being only a few months since I purchased it. How frustrated I was with the repair service at the store and the people who it seemed ignored my thoughts of what was wrong.

A prospective on my health issues.

A bit about a new group I sing with, complete with thoughts about our perceptions.

But, honestly, they all paled by something, but what it was I could not put my finger on. Glimpses, but only glimpses. How to restart this blog?

I now am pleased to present this entry.

Topic – Friends for life.

19 years ago on a very cold November morning while protecting women from people who wanted to harm them, I met a woman.

She didn’t know who I was and she was ‘captain’ of that location so she introduced herself to me. Actually, I had noticed her a few minutes before that. There was a guy who was very tall and large who was supposed to be there for the same purpose as I was, but that day, the words and deeds of those protesters got to him and set him off. He had only a few brief seconds of that before I saw a woman walked up to him, a foot or so shorter than he was. She took him gently by the collar and looked at him eye to eye. I saw no fear in her; only compassion and purpose. “You’re not going to do that today.” And she encouraged him to leave the scene and go with her. They were gone for a bit and I drew my attention to other things.

And then I heard a smiling female voice next to me, “Hi, I don’t know you,” and introduced herself. I introduced myself and oddly enough, felt no need to try to make small talk with her. Instead, we started a conversation on how we ended up at this moment in time to be standing here. Truly, the journey of it.

Over the next 3 hours we talked. I learned that she had lived in a number of countries and states. That she was of Arabic decent, and would be traveling to Dubai in a few weeks. We established, in perhaps subtle ways that we were both of orientation and lack of a relationship to be interested in each other. I told her a bit my life story, being a bit shy about it. She was cool about everything the morning flew along.

There was a point when I went to a nearby store to use their restroom and while I was walking I summoned the courage to ask her for her phone number. I felt that if I didn’t, I would regret that for a long time. When I returned, she had a piece of paper in her hand. It had her phone number on it. I gave her mine.

My plan after that was to wait 3 days and call her. I didn’t want to seem too eager. OK, desperate.

I came back to the flat that I shared with a roommate and told him that I had met a woman that morning. He was surprised and I told him all about her. It was cool that he was excited about it, but then, my phone line rang. (This was before cell phones) It was her, the woman I had met just a few hours before. She was going to a party that evening and wanted to know if I’d like to go. I said yes.

There are some I know who in that situation or during it they would have dated others, or wanted to. I can tell you that since that morning, I have never been on a date with someone else. By the way, I do not hold judgment of those who have, it just never happened or was something I wanted. It’s been just the two of us.

There was a night, a few weeks into the relationship when we stayed up together, talking. Just talking. We talked about our lives, from my life at home living in a dysfunctional home and the chaos of it and her life, with parents who were at times strict and the many cultures she has experienced and how they formed her to be who she is. There was a digital clock nearby and it was near a mirror that reflected the time backwards. One of us noticed that it was 11:11. Later 11:21 in the mirror and yet later, 11:01 until 11:40. I’ve never spent a night like that with anyone else in my life time. As near as it comes to that is staying up with a male friend in a “Dark night of the soul” night. I appreciate both.

Less than a year after that first meeting and date, I asked her to marry me. We were sitting on the edge of a lake that formed in what had been a quarry. Yes, our marriage started out on the rocks. We married in the court room of the Juvenile Detention Center of the county where we lived. That was where the judge was. After the ceremony we took photos us and out witnesses in the judges chair and so on. Later we met friends for dinner. It was a very simple day. But, the start of something amazing.

In the vows we took that day – we went traditional – we vowed to be with each other in good times and in bad.

And there have been good times. A trip to the middle east, complete with me waking up the first morning to the amplified call to prayer at sunrise, yelling as Joe Peshi did in “My Cousin Vinny” when the nearby factory whistle awoke them, “What the &^%* is that!?” When I see that movie, I laugh at myself. And being overseas, something my parents had never done.

There have been camping trips, and evenings when we just sat and talked, baring our souls to one another. Trips to other states and sight seeing. A new home – something we experienced twice. Concerts and dancing and singing on the stage of the Marcus Center for the Arts with the cast of Hair and a bunch of other people from the audience, while the audience watched and sang along.

There have been bad times. Automobile accidents, my crash on the moped I had at the time. Layoffs and stretches of unemployment, the death of friends. Problems with friends that lead to putting them to “no longer friend” status; Not on Facebook, real life.

Through it all there has been love. It shows up in simple ways. A “Good morning, I love you” note on the counter. My favorite coffee cup always clean and next to the coffee maker ready for me. Working long days to earn a living. Giving up weekends together to work and keep our financial heads above water. A simple hug that comes for no reason at all. There was the compassionate way she told me that a friend of ours who’s mental and medical state had deteriorated and I was involved in helping her and the family had passed away. The nightly fist bump at 11:11 or a text message.  

There is the way that she is able to show me every day how to live. She inspires me. She forgives after a short while of dealing with the hurt of what ever happened and whoever did it. I struggle with that and like most men I conceal my feelings at times – even from myself, and thus I tend to take longer.

There is the daily joy of cooking a gourmet level meal together and enjoying every bite of it. Or relishing the cooking of the other person.

And, after 19 years of marriage, being unable to end a phone conversation without saying “I love you.”

There is the simple honesty that exists between us. And that comes from trust.

I’ve known a lot of people in my life. A small group of them I’ve let any bit close to me, get to know who I am and what I have experienced in my life. Fewer still is the group who remain. Some drifted along as people often do as their lives changed or they did and moved on to something else. One ended his life as we were just getting started. Another betrayed me about as deep as one can. Telling a lie about me and causing all manner of pain and chaos to both myself and my wife. I guess they too drifted to something else. And, showed me what real trust is. Smaller still is longevity. I’ve known only one other person in my life longer than my wife. My best friend, who, like me is male. He has never set out to hurt me and has always looked out for me or tried to do what he could to help me. Friends are precious, trust is even more so.

Do I love her? In a simple word, yes, I do. I can’t ever see myself with anyone else as my companion on this journey of life. No one else in the world gets me like she does. No one understands my moods or my humor the way she does. No one tells me in honest terms how things are, or tells me a view of a situation like she does. I pay someone for that, and even they don’t always get the full picture of it, they can’t. They are not with me day after day. She understands me. And, I try very hard every day to show her how much I love her. Sometimes, and perhaps you feel this too, you feel like you fall short of that. Their love, her love is so big it’s hard to return that love.

She has shown me how to forgive. Yes, she hurts or is angry for a while, but then she’s over it. And not just with me, others. It’s a characteristic I think we all could use to learn. There would be a lot less anger, a lot less war and a lot less pain in this world if we were able to be like her. 

You see my gentle reader. If you had told me that November morning when I woke up that that day I would meet my soul mate and we would be married for at least 19 years, I would have laughed at you.

I am a very fortunate man. Even on the most troubling, struggled filled days between my wife and myself. Days when it seemed we could not work it out between us, as I think any couple has experienced at one time or another in a long relationship; I did not go to bed feeling like I was a very fortunate man for knowing her.

I hope that you have someone who fills your life like she does me.  I hope that you are fortunate like me to find your soul mate.