I am sad and angry. I'm not fun to talk to me right now and basically, I am licking my wounds. People hurt my feelings a lot this past week. My fear about my ability to pay for child's healthcare has fallen on a lot of deaf ears. I want to share little about how I am feeling. A little bit about why the result of this election is so terrifying for me.
Imagine being told your child's body was slowly going to break down until he lost the use of every muscle in his body. That eventually he wouldn't be able to breathe on his own and his heart would stop beating likely before he was 25 or 30. Imagine there is absolutely no cure, no treatment, nothing you can do to stop it. Your child's life will be a slow agonizing march to death.
Imagine then that someone found medicine to slow everything down, to give a few more years, a few more good years. Years he can play his Xbox and hug you. Years he can breathe without machines. Then imagine that it cost $300,000.00 a year. You need to pay 10% or $30,000.00 a year. You make after taxes maybe double, maybe triple that but you have to pay all your living expenses too. Imagine you have to say no to that medicine because you simply can't afford it. Imagine not being able to provide your child life into his late 20's. That is what repealing Obamacare is asking of Shelby and me, this is our greatest fear.
Before Obamacare insurance capped our yearly out of pocket but that didn't include prescriptions. Now prescriptions are included in this cap. I believe our family max is $2000.00 which is a lot less than $30,000.00 Tell be how the hell should I feel okay about repealing Obamacare? How am I supposed to not feel betrayed by the people that voted for the guy that wants to repeal it and then try to replace it. He says with something better.
What is something better? Everyone keeps telling us to wait and see. Seriously? This is our child. His illness isn't going to wait. It's not going away while we argue whether healthcare is a right or a privilege. Then what? Hope it gets replaced with something that includes all the same language that was already a law?
Am I being annoying and angry? Hell yes, I am. All I hear all the time is ,be angrier Nicole. Advocate. This is me advocating. This election was a lot of people ignoring that.
I accept the results of this countries election. I will not, however, stop talking about this. It is important. We have to decide what kind of country are we going to be from here? What messages are we going to send to our children about inclusion and taking care of those less fortunate than ourselves?
What makes me so angry is the legislature has already announced they are working up a repeal for as soon as Trump is in office. It is entirely possible (maybe even probable) that within the first week Obamacare will be repealed because repealing everything is easy. The hard part is making a new law, and there in is the rub. In January 1 everybody will already have their 2017 insurance there is nothing that the new administration can do about that, so what is the urgency to repeal the law immediately? The only reason is ego. Of course there is another option. They could actually create a real replacement without the repeal. They could alter the parts that are broken and leave the parts that they like piecemeal. They could phase it out over the course of a year or so while phasing in a new plan. There are so many options. But of course they choose the nuclear option because it is showy and the puppies lap it up. My only hope is that when the new legislature is seated they will realize that blowing something up without a replacement is a major risk and those that are seeking reelection in 2018 will insist on something more controlled because frankly repealing a law and having no fix in time for November 2017 open enrollment could be the end of any Republican majority in the legislature. I am hoping cooler heads prevail.
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