A Brief Reading List About The Costs of Healthcare

We need the ACA.

Today the House votes on whether or no to repeal the ACA. According to this report from the Los Angeles Times, House Republicans are being pressured to do so by the current administration — less a gentle suggestion from their boss and more a thinly-veiled threat.

Trump warns GOP: Vote for Obamacare repeal or lose your seat

Who knows what will happen, though it seems likely that Republicans will fall in line and do what the man in charge is asking of them. In light of what the future may hold, here are a few things to read.

Over at The Concourse, writer Bill Bradley fell down the stairs, busted up his knee and found out very quickly how easy it is to go broke because of a simple mishap. His health insurance journey is not uncommon — stitches cost more than you’d think and health insurance premiums do too — but as he writes, “The ACA, at least in my experience, freed me from job lock.”

My life may be made more difficult by the pending ACA repeal but my folks, as my dad bluntly put it the other day, will be “fucked.” They are both 62. They are healthy. They exercise regularly (my mom is particularly insane and sometimes goes to the gym twice a day). But they will have to shell out thousands more annually on healthcare than they do now. If the ACHA is passed, my mom and dad — along with many older Americans who cannot afford to retire yet, haven’t reached Medicare age, or do not have employer-provided coverage — are effectively being pushed into a ditch.

You Are About To Be One Dumb Accident Away From Bankruptcy, If You Aren’t Already

Fusion is running a series of stories called “Where It Hurts” about people living in the United States who “have lost health care when they needed it the most.”

There’s a story about Mary Bird, a 65-year old woman with scoliosis: “When the ACA came through, it was like I became a normal person. I could just go to my doctor down the block.” Jen, a woman with PTSD and chronic asthma, found herself committing what was essentially insurance fraud in order to get an inhaler when she needed it the most: “A good friend of mine had a father who was a medical doctor. He offered to prescribe the inhaler to his son, which would be covered by their insurance, who then gave it to me. So that’s how I was able to get an inhaler until I got insurance of my own a few years later. Basically through fraud.”

Elizabeth ran herself into debt after losing her insurance and charging the medication she needed to deal with her mental health issues.

There was a certain level of shame I experienced without insurance. I think there’s a lot of shame already around mental illness. I got sucked into that whole thing about mental health: Why can’t you just fix this on your own? Why pay all of this money to manage it? I didn’t want to tell anybody about my debt. There is just this narrative about financial stability and not having debt, even if it’s for something like medication.

And it’s scary to think we might go back to where health insurance companies don’t have to cover mental health. I worry about myself. I worry about people who are more vulnerable than I am.

Drowning in Debt to Stave Off the Mental Illness that Destroyed Her Mother

Treating multiple sclerosis without insurance is extraordinarily, horrifically expensive.

In other words: an MS patient, whether they’re receiving medication created nearly 30 years ago or medication currently in testing, must have “good” health insurance. Otherwise, that patient may fall into unbelievable debt just to get the treatment they need to stay functional.

The Price of Multiple Sclerosis Treatment

Some nice news, though, on those calls you’ve been making to your representatives and the like. Eric Harris, the communications director for Rep. Gwen Harris (D) of Wisconsin says, “So I have something to say to the hordes of furious callers who continue to bombard our office on a daily basis: Thank you.”

Perspective | This is what it’s like answering all those phone calls to Congress

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