A Dose of Reality

This is another one of my posts where I feel as though I need to rant a little about something. Everyone is talking about health care reform and that we need to change how health insurance is handled in America. I am going to be very candid and blunt about our situation and hope that some one reads this that can understand and help move this arduous process of democracy forward so that people like us can finally have some relief and decent health insurance.

We have insurance through my husbands employer and we are only offered one option. For our family to be insured we pay roughly $600 per month (this does not include the dental, that is more). We then pay for everything out of pocket to meet our deductible of $5,000 per person. In simple terms, we are paying hundreds of dollars just so we can say we have insurance and we have an insurance card but that is about it. As long as we stay in their network we do receive a small discount for our office visits and for some of our medications. The only reason we kept insurance was because one of my husband's medications can cost close to our premiums alone. However, it does nothing for my medicine that I need.

My husband is Diabetic and I have been diagnosed with a Pituitary Tumor, PCOS and Fibromyalgia (I am still going through testing because there is still something wrong and my doctors can't figure out what is going on but they keep leaning toward Lupus). We are both at the doctors office a lot, sometimes weekly. When we go we have to pay our co-pay and then we get the bill for the rest of the visit amount after the "discount". We owe for a lot of visits, labs and other tests (if you know me then you know what the other tests were). My youngest son also has some birth defects that have required him to have several surgeries. Luckily we have been blessed and led to Shriners Hospital for his care. Without that we wouldn't have been able to get him the healthcare that he needs!

Just this week I had to fill 3 of my medicines and pick up insulin for my husband. My total for just 4 refills was $221.00. We are living on one income because I can't work any more. We do have a health saving account but we use the full amount plus some every month. We probably could change the amount we put into that account, however, we do need to be able to put gas in our cars and buy food and keep our utilities on and pay rent.

Does anyone up on the hill in our Capital realize what it is like for families like mine? They might think they know but they have no clue. They are busy passing bills to give us a State Gun. They are trying to balance the State and Federal budget but are any of them willing to take a pay cut? I have heard many stories of people who have done just that so that the business can carry on and still keep their employees working so they can still have some income. I'm sure they are hearing these stories just like I am but do they really appreciate what the middle class is enduring right now?

In order for us to survive after I had to quit my job we moved from our home that we were leasing and wanted to buy and moved into a 2 bedroom apartment. We got rid of our gas guzzling SUV and got a more economical car. Odds are that we won't go on a vacation again this year and it has been 8 years since we had a true vacation. We are truly in the middle class and just out of reach to receive any government help for our family. Luckily we have been able to receive help from our Church.

It is very humbling to admit this publicly and I am hoping that it doesn't come back to hurt my family, but no one is really talking about healthcare too much anymore and the changes that President Obama tried to make are now tied up in court. We all know how fast that moves! I agree with the fact that we shouldn't be told that we have to have insurance, especially if we can't afford it. In the mean time, we will still be paying top dollar to just have an insurance card in our wallet so we can receive a small "discount". I wouldn't even mind paying that much for our premiums if it covered something more than giving us an insurance card.

My heart goes out to those families that have it worse than us. I know that we are blessed and fortunate to have a home to live in and that it is in a good neighborhood. However, just think what we could do if we didn't owe thousands of dollars to doctors and a hospital. We wouldn't have to struggle to buy food or pay our rent. We could buy shoes and clothes for our children when they need them instead of making them wait until we have a little extra.

We need our Government to please, please notice what is going on!

Please take the time to work together to do something other than bicker about illegal immigration and making sure we have a State Gun!!

Please take a moment to focus on what is affecting the Citizens that elected you. But then what do you care, healthcare can wait and move slowly through the court system because you already have wonderful insurance through the government!