In late 2008, I was 29, married, working my government job, and pregnant with my first baby. I would not have considered myself naïve. I'm a planner, if you don't know me. I'm pretty level headed, pretty responsible, not big on the risk-taking scale. We didn't find out the sex of our baby and that was about as much out of my control-freak comfort zone I had in my life at the time. We were married 5 years before we were ready to be responsible for a tiny human, and although I suppose you're never really ready for a baby, we were as ready as we could be.
So when our sweet little Sofia was born with a complex, undetected heart condition we were suddenly thrown into a new world. I had trouble coping (who wouldn't? post partum hormones, surgery at 4 days old, lengthy hospital stay, and trying to stay on top of all the medical things happening to Sofia, trying to hold it together while I really just wanted to be in a dark room and sob.) Fun times.
I'm not sure what her medical expenses ended up being, but at the time I focused on her and not our bills. Once I came out of the fog, I started to pay attention. I remember getting bills telling me to send the Clinic $80,000 (ha.) And I spent a lot of time on the phone trying to sort it all out, making spreadsheets, and keeping notes. So here's the thing: as much as I was a planner, I had no idea what our insurance would or wouldn't cover. It covered my pregnancy and her birth, wouldn't it cover her? I didn't know what we'd be responsible for. I didn't know that heartless terms like "lifetime max" even existed. I didn't know anything about healthcare laws. I have a master's degree in government and am pretty politically minded, but suddenly I had no clue. I just had a baby I'd do anything for, but was unsure of what was next.
So I was naïve. Thankfully, I did have good insurance. She's had 3 surgeries, 4 heart caths, and a non-heart related surgery in her almost 9 years. She is amazing and doing very well. The day the Affordable Care Act was passed I breathed a sigh of relief. Goodbye penalties for pre-existing conditions, goodbye lifetime maxes, hello well visits for kids (and adults) without copays, free breast pumps for nursing moms, and a host of other good things. And I know that some people had to pay higher premiums and that at my government job they did away with spouses being covered by our insurance if they had access to their own plans. But there was a lot of good. I would have paid more (and did because at some point our premiums took a steeper than usual hike) because of the benefits waaaaay outweighing the negative.
So yes, I take it personally now when there are threats to those protections. People with pre-existing conditions are not protected under the most recent Graham - Cassidy bill. If insurers are able to cut or increase premiums for those people they will. We need federal mandates that won't allow them to do that.
"Americans Will Always Do the Right Thing — After Exhausting All the Alternatives."- Winston Churchill. Will we ever get healthcare right? Healthcare is a basic human necessity. It's not a privilege to those who can afford it. Are we ever going to put people over politics? I don't want my child to grow up and think she's a liability. She is a miracle.
