How Our Health-Care System Wrecks People Who Play by the Rules

by Steve Taylor 10-05-2009

Recently, I learned that my parents’ home is being foreclosed on. This course was set due to illness with both parents — they needed to re-mortgage their home in order to pay their mounting medical bills. My father has worked his entire life as an industrial mechanic, has had insurance, and both parents are eligible for Medicare. Thanks to other factors, however — cancer, a rare genetic cardiovascular anomaly, brain surgery, other illnesses, thousands of dollars in medicines, the massive co-pays, other treatments insurance wouldn’t cover, and a tanked economy that deeply hit my father’s industry — my parents are now losing the home.

My father struggled to preclude this from occurring. Through the physical suffering of disease and the constraints of a 76-year-old body, my father did not retire. With his skill set, even in a bad economy, and in a job that is meant for younger men, he desperately continued to work more than most … but still, it wasn’t enough.

Such is the nightmare of the time and culture in which we live — a financial system built on and collapsed by the greed of those who cared little for the consequence, and an insurance/illness industry pregnant by the profits of sick people. In such a system, good people can work hard, have medical insurance, get sick, and lose their homes. It is no wonder that Jesus said, “…for the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” It was not meant as a compliment.

The home has been in our family for about a century. My mother grew up in the home. I spent my early childhood years there. My grandparents and great-grandparents lived there. Its walls have contained almost every important event of our family’s life for the last 100 years. And now, on October 16, if we are unable to slow this process through legal action, it will go to auction. Even if we get a few months reprieve, it still seems certain that my folks will lose their home.

The shock of it all has moved Mom into such a difficult space — almost to a point of total dysfunction. That is the very difficult part of all of this. Likely, it is post-traumatic stress. She weeps and keeps repeating, “They are taking our home. We should have been able to do better.” I try to gently explain that she and Dad did nothing wrong, but simply became sick while living in an insane system created to wreak exactly this destruction. But of course, she can hardly hear it. She still sees it as somehow “their fault.”

I’m so angry about this demonic system, a system that destroys the lives of old folks and then seduces them into believing they are guilty of suicide. More than that, I’m angry at my own past compliance in it, only having moved to call for economic and relational justice during the past 15 years. Worse, it was my local church that taught me that not only was my acceptance of such a system appropriate, the system itself was “Christian.” There is much about which to repent. For me … for us all.

If we can get my parents through this without the damage of literally being put on the street, I think they will adjust. But if my mom can’t find a way to be able to leave, I truly am concerned with how she will respond. If they are forced out by the sheriff, their furniture on the street, the shock will kill them.

This is their reality and the reality of tens of thousands of other Americans. My dad and mom did everything that good Americans do. By society’s standards, they played by all the right rules and made all the right decisions. They paid their taxes, didn’t grouse, worked hard, and voted in every election. And now, they are losing their home because they got sick while living in a construct built on greed.

How can this be? Simply because in America, health care isn’t a right. It is a commodity on which profit is made from people who are at the most vulnerable points of their lives.

Do we need universal health care today? No — we needed it before my parents and tens of thousands of others had lost their homes. We needed universal health care yesterday.

So I ask that you join us in prayer. Mom is especially in deep need of the felt-presence and surety of God. And then, I ask you to act. Call your congressional representative and demand universal health care. Teach a class on how Jesus advocates for and literally lives in “the least of these.” Engage in issues of justice. Welcome the stranger, feed the hungry, care for the sick. If not now, then when? And if not us, then who?

My parents never believed they would be in this position. I bet your parents don’t believe it either. And it is almost always somebody’s parents … or children … or neighbors.

Steve Taylor has been engaged in ministries of peace-making and justice for several years, first as a United Methodist Church and Community Worker, and then on staff at the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.

To learn more about health-care reform, click here to visit Sojourners’ Health-Care Resources Web page.

Categories: Economics, Health

Tags: America, cancer, church, Community, dad, Economic, economy, Family, grandparents, greed, Health, health care, health insurance, least of these, medical bills, medical insurance, Medicare, medicine, neighbors, profits, system, trauma

wood0742

I agree with all you say about the current health-care "system". It worries me that a man of 76 years is still paying on a mortgage, but I assume that came about through refinancing to pay for some of the health related issues. Please, before the 16th, get him to file for bankruptcy through a good bankruptcy lawyer who should file an injunction against the mortgage holders to stop the forclosure action until the bankruptcy action can be resolved. Under bankruptcy laws in most states, they can not take the home. Given the apparent lack of outside resources (term Life that be borrowed from, cashed in, etc.), this is the best, and only, pathway I can see for them. Please push them to action before its too late.

Ngchen

Anyone notice how the problem inevitably arises when costs are such that people cannot afford them? Reform is great, but unless ways are devised to tame costs such tragedies are bound to recur over and over again. Sadly, there has been little talk on cost-taming.

letjusticerolldown

I go for single-payer as a strategy to seriously go after the costs--using the resources to deliver access--and allowing the provision of services to decentralize. Then somehow allow states to move out of single-payer if we could innovate other ways to control cost/increase access/better outcomes.

Mennoman

Unfortunately the concept of a single payer system was a non-starter. Not even considered at all in any of the hearings, as I understand it.

letjusticerolldown

Maybe it will be the one plan left standing after everything else gets knocked out and some politicians finally decide they serve the public (whether or not that benefits the insurance industry and lawyers)

jonabark

The cost of healthcare in the countries with universal government insurance are all cheaper than any insurance plan in the US. Even if you throw in all the uninsured people in the country we still pay more per person and are less healthy, and have higher malpractice problems than countries with government health care. There are many many ways to cut government spending with Zero loss of collective wealth or security . The largest area of waste and spending inordinate to any real need is the Defense Department. You could cut that budget in half and nobody would know the difference. We might have to give up foreign wars and some foreign bases but we would still have a larger military than anyone. Another area is the cost of political campaigns. In the US the people own the air waves and rent them for commercial use with a stipulation about public service that is not enforced; let broadcasters contribute time for democracy to work , let every qualified candidate be guaranteed a voice in public debate; let's make this a living democracy. Another area is Corporate and private tax loopholes allowing US corporations to falsely have headquarters offshore and evade taxes. This is only the beginning , but if we did this and instituted medicare for all and allow the government to bargain for lower costs we could easily cover everyone with no increase in taxes and be able to afford to begin to green the country.
I say we shut down TV 3 days a week and encourage walking, dancing, biking, baseball, volley ball and gardening. Let's start to walk the lard off for a healthier America. Let's start to talk to each other while doing things we all love. TV is not freedom it is an unhealthy addiction that lowers school performance, breaks up family communication, and makes people forgetful, numb and overweight. Would you let Saddam, or Stalin, or Bernie Maddox in your house every day to walk around your hose spouting off. Why let the creeps who run TV control your brain.

The story Steve tells is heartbreaking and all too common. Health care is not a right as of today , but we are the people who give ourselves rights and put limits on the greedy. We can make health care a right with no loss of freedom and a great gain in freedom and equality and security for individuals and businesses for whom it would remove a tremendous waste of energy and money. Right now businesses and individuals are hanging separately because we don't hang together and stand together.

Power is out of balance in America. Corporations control political speech. The richest 1 percent owns more than the bottom 90%. When universal single payer is off the table then the fundamental principle of one person one vote is off the table.

Calzone

Our Lord Jesus admonished us to care for the poor, the sick and the elderly and we have a Moral Responsibility and Obligation to do so. Calzone

squeaky

Your handle makes me hungry....mmmmm....calzones....

Calzone

OK Squeaky, lets go eat one. I like them loaded with garlic. Calzone

letjusticerolldown

Lots of responses--not the least of which is to "ditto" wood0742

As you are painfully aware, a universal plan (e.g.Medicare extended to all), did not stop this scenario. So there is a bit of a disonnect between the story and your policy advocacy. That is OK. The story is powerful and will pray for parents. I also back a call for universal access. But I simply note that leaves much unanswered.

You likely have experienced that all the medicare and medicare supplemental policies in the nation can still leave you high and dry. There are no guarantees.

One thing we all must face is that there is an end. There are limits. There are choices. There is pain.There is sickness. There is death. And we fight.

Your parents have you. You have them. For now you each have life.

I am not lecturing--this is a share of my own experience.

My wife was critically ill for 4 years before passing (3 years ago on Wednesday). She had marvelous care and coverage--and it still sapped every ounce of my energy. Anyone who has critical needs does not need insurance--they need multiple coverages in this environment. Which for the vast majority isn't even possible.

I think the point I am circling is this: On the one hand we have advocates of a universal system arguing it will solve problems it will not solve. And on the other hand we have advocates of doing even less so as to allow the market to do more who believe it will solve things it will not solve. A starting point is to affirm there is much of great worth we have an ethical obligation to do--and that it has limits. Without lining up our values (what is good and the limits therein) we end up pushing for answers that aren't answers--because we frame the wrong questions.

When my wife was ill I'd listen to my pre-schoolers pray for their Mommy. I'd tell God, "OK, maybe you won't hear my prayers; but if you are going to sit there, all-powerful, and listen to these simple prayers of children who fully believe you can heal, that you desire healing, and that you are all-good; that just want their Mommy to live; what kind of God are you?"

They played by the rules. They lost their Mom.

And God was very, very good.

Your blog is rich because it raises many issues. One of which is our woeful health "system". I want it to be healed. But also know other of the issues you raise will remain.

Ashleigh101

I am not in favor of a universal plan like "letjusticerolldown" but I agree with several of his comments. I think he is ultimately getting at this: even if you have THE best insurance in the world, and tons of coverage, etc... there still is no guarantee that you won't suffer, and die (at some time... since obviously, we all will one day die).

Since we are not God, and we are not gods, there are many things in our lives that are simply out of our control. Health care obviously is in need of reform, but even if it goes universal, we will never create a utopia. Sometimes it seems to me as if people are hoping for that. A sort of utopia in which there will be no suffering, no financial hardships, and no death.

There will still be plenty of problems, even if this health care "reform" passes. It is not going to be some sort of problem-free, perfected health care system. I think this story shows that even Medicare, a govt. program, can fail people. Same with Medicaid. I recently read that Medicaid patients have a 50% higher chance of dying after a heart bypass than those with private insurance. Also, 40% of doctors don't take Medicaid because Medicaid doesn't reimburse costs of treatment.

Now, from what I see, the only thing being discussed in D.C. with regards to these two programs is cuts to Medicare, which I can't see how that will improve the quality of either Medicare or Medicaid. So, here we are, creating another govt. run health care system, while we already have two that are in dire need of their own reform.

Even if there had been universal health care in place, the author's parents could've still been going through and have gone what they are going through. I highly doubt that universal health care is going to pay for everything a patient might need, including the millions in expensive treatments that those who are elderly might be in need of.

myfanwy

Medicaid is not run by the Federal government.

Ashleigh101

Medicaid is a national program, created by the federal govt, and funded jointly by the fed. govt and the states, who administer it. The fed govt. also sets the standards for it.

jonabark

The suffering Steve is talking about is preventable. It is not about the pain and suffering of aging or sickness. It is about a system that takes everything from the sick and forces Steve's mother to ask what they did wrong.. Your last paragraph is just wrong , countries with universal health care don't force the aged into bankruptcy when they get sick.
The comment below shows that you are listening to professional liars posing as journalists, who will do anything to protect the interests of their corporate bosses.

NMRod

We have relatives on both sides of the US/Canada (now heavily militarized) border. To be blunt, this NEVER happens in Canada. NEVER. Is it some socialist paradise? No. It's a typical first world capitalist western country, more alike to the United States than any other in the world in most aspects - except the abysmal and corrupt US health care "system." However, the country does not spend the majority of its finances on military garrisoning of the whole planet, to the tune of more than all other countries combined. Nor does it have a predatory greed-motivated medical "insurance" system. It does have the second most expensive medical system in the world as it is equivalent in quality to that of the US - but it covers everyone and the country is largely middle class with few poor and many wealthy folks. As in the US, the vast majority of medical personnel are not government employees, as a percentage even less than in the US hybrid system that doesn't do either public or private well. The budget is balanced and a Conservative government has been in power for some time - and the unemployment even in the private sector is far less than here.

What a shame and a scandal. No one in Canada need worry about finances when challenged with expensive and catastrophic diseases - or even ones that shouldn't cause catastrophe, but do here in our own nation.

I guess we have sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind.

Ashleigh101

Now this is just not true at all. I have read many stories, which I've shared on other blogs here, of people being denied health care in Canada, of people going to the U.S. for health care that they either cannot get in Canada, or the wait is extremely long, and of pepole who have huge wait times for care that they need.

I watched a video of a guy named Steven Crowder (who works for PajamasTV and makes videos like this), and he went "undercover" in Canada (similar to the way the two people did with ACORN), and he filmed it. He and his friends went to one clinic and asked for a blood test. The nurse said... Nope, we don't do that here. The guy did not have a doctor and asked how long it'd be for him to be able to see a doctor (which was the only way he could get a blood test). She answered: "THREE YEARS!!"

He also interviewed a woman whose mother had a leg infection. She couldn't get into a doctor for an entire year. By then, they had to amputate BOTH her legs!! The woman said, "My dog can get quicker and better care at the vet!"

Or take this story of Suzanne Aucoin. She had stage IV colon cancer and her doctor prescribed the drug Erbitux. In the U.S., private insurance companies cover Erbitux. But Suzanne lived in Canada, and under their "great" socialized insurance system, they denied it. She actually fought it, something not a lot of Canadians do when certain care is denied them. Unfortunately, she died 2 years ago. (http://www.helpsuzanne.com/index2.html).

I also read a story of a man (can't think of his name now) whose doctor recommended hip surgery. Canada denied it because he was basically... too old. So, he paid for it himself. Then, his other hip was causing him problems. Doctor said the same thing. Hip surgery. Again, Canada said NO. Not only that, but they said... and you cannot pay for it yourself either. So... he went to America and had it done there.

Pretty pathetic and pitiful.

And yet you state that "this NEVER happens in Canada," and that is just simply and totally untrue.

canucklehead

Ashleigh, your constant snipping notwithstanding, my wife has worked ER on both sides of the 49th for 25 years plus and can out-story, out-anecdote, out-tidbit these faux journalists you come up with any day of the week. The health care system in Canada has its fair share of problems and any reporter can find someone to whine about how badly they were treated. Usually, important details are completedly omitted in the telling of their sob story. I can tell you stories of 85 yr old church people who thought they'd outsmarted the system by receiving new knees at their age. No one was laughing at the wasted cash when the same people were dead 6 months later from unrelated causes associated with aging, so "yes" at times health care officials have to make difficult decisions based on the fact that most 80+ yr olds are already living on borrowed time.

The fact of the matter is, as NMRod well knows, the kind of story that Steve relates here NEVER, hear it again, NEVER takes place in Canada under normal circumstances.

Ashleigh101

"Per capita spending in Canada is just more than half, or US$3,165, of what it is in the United States. All good, sure. But there's a price to be paid. Managing overall costs has meant managing individuals' access to care. The result? Overcrowded emergency rooms, growing wait lists for services ranging from hip replacement to heart surgery, and less access to life-saving drugs for those who need them most. Some Canadians have opted to travel to places such as India or China for surgery in private hospitals; others have mortgaged their lives away to purchase drugs not covered by provincial formularies."

http://www.brianday.ca/canadian-business-magazi...

Mennoman

Do US insurance companies manage people's access to healthcare?

kansasmennonite

Quote:"and less access to life-saving drugs for those who need them most"

IS that why I go to Canada to buy my prescription medicine?

Are people from here not going to India or MExico for surgerys?
Are you the anti-Canada spokesperson without ever dealing with their system?