Living Without Health Care

I am one of the millions of uninsured Americans. My story is not unique but is complicated and I have shared it openly in multiple venues with multiple media sources to raise awareness of the plight of the uninsured and to advocate for health care reform. For the first time, our nation is having serious discussions on health care reform. In every story I read, in every discussion I hear, people are asked about the costs of the uninsured. I can speak to the personal costs of being uninsured because I have lived that life for too long.

The uninsured have increased stress, worry, and fear. Personally, I have been stressed knowing that something could happen that would require me or my husband to obtain health care which would place a financial burden on my family. I have worried about the lack of preventive health care and about the possibility that something would happen that would hurt my family and endanger our future together. I have lived in fear that one day the lack of preventive health care would extract a price that we should not or could not pay. I have lived worrying about and fearing what the future may hold because I knew that living without health care would eventually extract a price that we couldn’t afford.

When a person lives without health insurance then they live without consistent preventive health care. This can allow a condition to develop, go untreated, worsen, and threaten the life of an individual. In my case, I knew I had something going wrong with my body but couldn’t afford to obtain health care until the condition worsened to the point that I had no choice. By then it was too late and the damage had been done. The cost of the lack of preventive health care is not just measured in dollars. It is also measured in quality of life and length of life. The cost of being uninsured and the lack of preventive health care can decrease the quality of life and the length of life.

The uninsured typically do not have the ability to obtain health care when a medical crisis occurs. I knew that obtaining health care would be a challenge because I am uninsured. When my condition became intolerable and I had to obtain health care I was told that my only solution was to go to my local hospital emergency room if I thought that it was anything major or if I thought it was something minor and I had the money on hand to pay a private physician then I had to find one that would accept the uninsured. I knew it was something major, the human body doesn’t naturally decrease body temperature to the range of hypothermia, the body doesn’t allow the legs to suddenly stop moving regardless of how hard one tries to move, and the pain receptors do not produce intolerable levels of pain without there being something majorly wrong with the body.

The uninsured typically have less financial reserves to live off of when a medical emergency occurs and have an inability to maintain continued health care. In my case, it was recommended by the Emergency Room Attending Physicians and the Neurologist that I be hospitalized for an indefinite period to obtain a diagnosis and provide treatment. I knew that hospitalization was not something that my family could afford. It wasn’t just the medical costs but it was also the fact that we do not have any financial reserves for the family to live off of nor do we have any home health nursing assistance and daily care assistance for my children with special health care needs. My husband and I work in shifts to provide the care to our children that their special health care needs require and we do not have family or friends that are trained, live close, and could assist us. I left the Emergency Room against medical advice. I had to obtain testing and a diagnosis by repeatedly visiting the referred physicians and hospital on an outpatient basis which prolonged, delayed, and complicated the ability to obtain an accurate diagnosis. I obtained three failed attempts of treatment and then was told there was nothing more that they could do for me because I am uninsured, I refused to be hospitalized, and they thought my condition was incurable. I had to make the decision between continuing to accumulate a debt that my family could not afford to pay or try to live with this condition for as long as I could.

The emotional and psychological costs of being uninsured are increased stress, worry and fear. The physical costs of being uninsured are the lack of preventive health care, the probability that something serious may occur which would go untreated and may lead to a lower quality of life and a decreased life span. The financial costs of being uninsured are loss of income to the individual when a medical crisis occurs which then can affect that individuals ability to maintain the necessities of life such as housing, food, utilities such as electricity and water, and employment.

The consequence of living without health insurance when a medical crisis occurs affects every aspect of an individual’s life. Marriages and families fall apart from the stress or from the necessity to qualify for public health programs. Families lose their homes when they have to make a choice between paying their mortgage and obtaining health care. Families lose their income when a member of the family loses their employment due to a health care crisis. Families choose between putting food on the table, clothes on their backs, paying their monthly bills for utilities and housing, obtaining education for themselves and their children, paying for repair and maintenance of personal property such as a vehicle to maintain employment, and obtaining consistent health care. If the costs of obtaining health care was a simple choice between not purchasing new clothes for a few months then we could all afford it. But it isn’t, the costs of obtaining health care are too high, it is more than doing without a small luxury for a month, it is doing without a basic necessity of life. Few people have large amounts of disposable income every month to pay for health care.

The financial barriers to obtaining health care include the high costs of private health insurance, the costs of deductibles and co-pays, the caps on coverage, the pre-existing conditions clause in all policies, the exclusions and limitations of coverage, and the individuals’ specific situation. My family includes children with special health care needs which means that our life situation is complicated. We had to choose between limiting our income to allow our children with special health care needs to qualify for Medicaid because their medical conditions require treatment and medications that are far too expensive for anyone to afford or trying to earn enough money to purchase extremely expensive private health insurance that had pre-existing condition clauses, exclusions, limitations, caps on coverage, and high co-pays and deductibles. Our limited income does not allow us to have enough disposable income to pay for private health insurance for my husband and me or to pay for consistent health care.

Everyone makes choices in life; some of those choices are between the lesser of two evils. The choices we must make can be very difficult and have a range of consequences. For us, it was a choice between providing a life for our children by continuing to work under limitations or giving up our lives and our dreams for our family. We believe in being productive contributing members of society and teaching our children by example that working hard is rewarding. We believe that although the choices we have made have been difficult and have had some negative consequences on our future together or have changed our dreams for our family, they have been the right choices. The uninsured are one medical emergency away from bankruptcy, and are one step away from having to making a choice that will have a lasting impact on their lives.

Living without health insurance is taking a chance that the health of an individual will always be good and nothing will ever happen to negatively affect that individual’s health. As in any game of chance, sometimes a person can have a winning streak for a period of time. But then, as always happens when playing a game of chance, a person can lose a little or lose everything. Too many people, like me, have been forced by their life situations to play a game of chance with their health. I understand that because I have lived it. The costs of being uninsured to an individual and their family are, at times, too high and too unfair. It may be altruistic or unrealistic of me to hope that others agree that life is not a game and that everyone has the inherent right to affordable quality health care. I have to have hope that the majority of Americans will agree and that the discussions that are occurring on health care reform will produce, and our elected officials will create, a truly affordable quality national health care plan.

-Kimberly