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Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
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What I mean to say is.... |
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| Insurance panic | ||
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by Beau Burriola -
SGN Foreign Correspondent I held the letter in my hand for a while, numb. I stayed like that for a few eternities. I couldn't move. I've never been so unsure of my next move. I was too empty to be scared. I was too unsure to be hopeful. I was imploded. For months, I'd been waiting for my new health insurance plan to start so I could start caring again for my HIV, start getting my bloodwork, start knowing where I was at, continue with my meds. I'd been living the last few months unsure of what happens next or how I was doing. I was living with no insurance at all. I gambled on my ability to find work and get insurance going again. Then I found the job that was going to offer the answer in the form of Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance. Full health benefits. Great benefits. I thought I was saved. I was wrong. I opened the envelope in one quick tear, feeling the card inside. Insurance! Now I can continue being healthy and happy, being well, surviving. This is my new sword. What I didn't know (and how could I, really, since you have no way of knowing you need to research something you don't know you need to research) was that insurance companies have something called a "preexisting condition exclusion," a clause which allows a new insurance company (even through an employee health plan) to exclude any type of care for any type of condition you already have if you go for more than 63 days without insurance. I had no way of knowing, until today, when the letter came. Until it was too late. My sword was useless. Now, cluelessly, terrifyingly, I find myself joining the ranks of tens of thousands of people with HIV who have no way to pay for it. In this, the richest country on earth, if you make more than the poverty level, you are expected to somehow fork over $2,000-$3,000 a month out-of-pocket for your meds, even if it is more than you make in a year. How do I make that work? What am I going to do? What do other people do? When I found the will to move, I started some research. I spent hours poring over website after website, looking for an answer. What do HIV-positive people do when they don't have insurance? Some quit working to meet the poverty standard, some wait until they are sick enough to claim disability. Some give up. Nobody seems to have a good answer. Is that what I am supposed to do now? Stop? Give up? Get sick? After all the years of doing just the opposite? Do I just wing it and hope for the best? How do I plan for the worst? As an HIV-positive person in America, I refuse to believe that the medicines I take every month actually cost $2,000-$3,000 dollars to make. I refuse to believe that those who cannot afford them are not entitled to them, if they can keep folks living. I refuse to believe that my insurance company has the right to decide whether and when I am worthy of care. Above all, I refuse to believe that my only course of action is to give up and wait. I can't accept any of that. The right to live - come what may after that - but surely the right to live with the help of life-saving medications ought to be a concession afforded every person, shouldn't it? That isn't the America I live in though, is it? In the America I live in, we get rid of the people we don't want - the sick, the weak, the immoral or unfavorable - by doing nothing. In a civilized society, we don't kill the unsavory with guns and toss their bodies in ditches. We just don't regard them at all. Only in the America I live in can you work your ass off for health insurance and be sent a letter by Blue Cross Blue Shield telling you that it just isn't good enough. Beau Burriola is a writer who isn't out of the running yet. He just needs a good idea or two. beaubrent@gmail.com |
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visit Beau at www.beaubrent.com
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