Guaranteed Healthcare

Families making tough decisions about babies and birthing and living the American dream as the for-profit healthcare system gobbles up personal choice and freedom.

The anti-family push of the for-profit health system

By Donna Smith, American SiCKO and now of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee

                As a patient and the wife of a patient struggling to endure the for-profit medical system, I often hear from other patients who share their frustrations.  And though my husband and I lost everything we worked more than three decades for (even our home and our dignity), I can still sometimes thank God we had our children before the American medical system made its full, ugly twist toward protecting profits over people. 

                Now, patients and their families are often making larger life choices based solely on their health insurance picture and planning for the worst possible outcomes.  The land of hope and dreams that America offered to many to give our children better than what we were given ourselves has given way to something very different.

                Susanne McDowell of California told me quite a story on the guaranteedhealthcare.org patient stories section. 

She wrote: What's it like to have to decide whether to abort your baby because no-one will give you medical coverage during your pregnancy? That's something I discovered in the summer of 2006 when - during a 3-month-lull in personal health insurance coverage - I found out I was pregnant. I was living in Montana at the time, and my employer had not granted me health care coverage. I made too much to receive government-based health care (a government employee suggested I quit my job so that I would be eligible - I refused).

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     Now here’s just the type of young, expectant parent we want to celebrate, right?  Hard-working.  Not trying to “game” the system.  Susanne simply wanted to start her family and be responsible about it.   

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She told me more: I applied for insurance via Blue Cross Blue Shield and was denied. I had to decide whether to continue with the pregnancy or abort. I found a birth center that would allow me to pay a total of $5,000 as long as I gave birth naturally and without any pain medicine at the center. My husband and I had just sold a house, and we knew we could use 1/3 of the profit to pay the fee. I decided to continue with the pregnancy. I prayed that I would have no complications so that we would be able to afford it. I did all I could to prepare for the natural birth. I practiced meditation and hypnosis. I ate well and exercised moderately. I went to all of my prenatal visits. I took prenatal vitamins. I gained no more than the recommended 20-25 pounds.

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                Another disturbing trend Susanne addresses here is the recent “let’s blame the patient” strategy employed in ever-expanding ways by those who favor for-profit healthcare as they try to justify denied benefits or insurance company exclusions.  This young, responsible mother feels the need to let me and everyone else know she did all she could to have a healthy and -- in our current system – cheaper delivery.  But first she had to assess if even an uncomplicated delivery would fit in the family budget.  Abortion was considered. 

                Surely making abortion a more viable option for young families isn’t what our self-appointed “family values” protectors who often argue against healthcare for all – wanted to encourage.  But those are some of the very human and very real unintended consequences, the collateral damage, of the for-profit healthcare system. Young, responsible families have to make tough choices to balance the family budget. 

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But all did not go well for Susanne: Unfortunately, despite those efforts and despite my desire to have an all-natural, medicine-free birth, my baby did not descend properly during labor. My husband drove me from the birth center to the hospital (the birth center charged me a $500 out-of-pocket transfer fee). After two and a half days of labor, the doctor ordered a C-section. I then spent three nights in the hospital. My medical bills totaled about $20,000. We are still paying them off.            

Recently, the birth center threatened to call in creditors if we did not pay off the remaining $500 balance. Meanwhile, months later we still receive random bills from the hospital, the hospital's contractors, and the birth center. It feels like it will never end.

Would I do it all again? Though I love my son, I can't give you a resounding yes. Because I knew we would have to pay for everything on our own, I spent my entire pregnancy feeling worried and paranoid about pregnancy-related health problems. I do not plan to have another child, even now that I have insurance (which carries a $5,000 deductible). I do not trust insurance companies.  Sincerely, Susanne ----------------------------------------------------------------------------    

                 What do we tell moms like Susanne?  What does our system tell them?  President Bush has an answer for those who don’t think the uninsured have access to care.  Go to the emergency room, that’s the Bush healthcare plan.  But for some it doesn’t work out so well.  For working families, for responsible mothers like Susanne, Bush-care isn’t a good way to go.

                Our thoughtful citizens don’t go blindly into irresponsible situations or repeat actions that caused harm in the past, but do we really want to have moms and dads make these kinds of decisions within this broken system?   

My take-away: The healthcare crisis is stealing much more than we can ever know from patients and families.  All the children we will never know – all the families that have been damaged and torn apart – all the hope we once handed down from American generation to American generation – gobbled up by the profit-mongers and the powers behind them.

                Patients like Susanne are not simply bottom-line digits – they are babies and mothers and soldiers and clerks and dads and grandpas and future American dreamers.  If we all get access to health care, that is…

Can’t wait for protest June 19 in San Francisco.  Let’s tell the insurance companies we’re not going to take it any more!

 Patients, Not Profits