Thirty-three days ago, my 22-year-old daughter had an eight-hour open heart surgery at one of the top cardiac care facilities in the world. On my employer's health insurance.
Thank you, President Obama.
The author's daughter was born with congenital heart disease and has undergone extensive medical intervention since the day of her birth. She was able to go on her mother's health insurance just in time.
You want to know what it's like to hear your daughter is at high risk for something called sudden cardiac death syndrome? No, you don't. Really.
Understand this, though: The last thing you want to be inflicted with, on top of every other worst case scenario playing out in your panicked brain, is concern about whether the good news is that you'll have to help your daughter figure out how to declare medical bankruptcy from a hospital bed at age 22.
Again, thank you, President Obama.
But its not just that aspect of ACA that they're counting on.
Before this week, we already were worrying about her 26th birthday, the confusion of entering the nobody-in-their-right-minds-wants-to-insure-you arena. Face it, what we have here is the mother of all pre-existing conditions. But we figured we had a couple of years to learn the bureaucratic ins and outs. Our talisman has been the pre-existing conditions clause of the health care act; we've been hanging on for dear life to that, whispering it to ourselves as we fall asleep at night: "No discrimination due to pre-existing conditions." In 2014, the year my daughter turns 25, that life-saving prohibition goes into effect.
Thank you, again and again and again, President Obama.
But now my daughter's entire future is in the hands of nine black-robed jurists, and we are terrified.
There's another reason this story is powerful. The author is Susan Gardner, executive editor of Daily Kos, and this was written for the front page of that blog. Her gratitude to President Obama is in stark contrast to the "kill the bill" folks who ran rampant there for months during the health care debate. So excuse me while I say..."its about time."
Here's how Gardner ends the article:
The current health care law is a baby step in the direction of having more universal cost sharing. Lose that, and we're screwed, both as a society and in my family.
One thing is certain: No single case before the U.S. Supreme Court will ever get the degree of attention from my 22-year-old that this one has.
The rest of her life depends on it.
i am OUTRAGED that the supreme court who have FREE GOVT SOCIALIZED HEALTH CARE have our lives in their hands! TEABAGGERS thomas, scalia, alito and roberts have OPENLY mocked the health care bill KNOWING it was heading to the court. THE SPEED with which it reached the court BEFORE EVEN BEING IMPLEMENTED shows the bias which it received AHEAD OF TIME. the entire reason a case makes it to the high court is because of an INJURED PARTY and since this law has not been implemented until 2014 the TEABAGGERS have managed to get the law tossed BEFORE anyone can claim to be INJURED by it. lincoln freed the slaves but it took a CENTURY to get a civil rights bill to the supreme court, and there were UNTOLD number of INJURED PARTIES!!! the TEABAGGER state of texas is trying to toss my son off his medicaid. they were successful in sept and by christmas i had it back. now i get a letter saying april 30th he's off, and i'm told all i can do is get an attorney! he's been on child medicaid and on SSI since age 10 for mental illness and emotional disturbance. what would suggest that turning 21 would MAGICALLY CURE HIM??? nothing of course, in fact he's struggling after just finishing high school and college being difficult to adjust to. now he needs a medication change and they want to take the medicaid??? i've been looking for a psychiatrist for OVER 6 MONTHS because the baylor clinic we belong to has specialist EXCEPT psychiatry - thats because they have a CONCIERGE program called the menniger clinic and only INSURED AND AFFLUENT people can access these services. the alternative is the country, but it is reserved for the uninsured because texas has so man uninsured. so i'm told to find a private psychiatrist, but i find doctors on my "plan" who say they are not accepting new patients. or a few who have a waiting list up to 6mos when my son needs one now! he suffered lead exposure as a toddler and it caused BRAIN DAMAGE, which lead to the severe adhd and the mood disorders. years of special ed, psychiatric hospitalizations and countless medication changes. now SSI sees an opening to toss him off, but he's WELCOME to "apply for adult SSI", like he's NEVER been on it. he's never worked, cannot handle money, is about 15 emotionally even though he chronologically is 21years. i'm on a waiting list at the legal aid clinic for a guardianship and NONE of these services ARE COORDINATED. we fall through every crack imaginable, from the state medicaid and the federal SSI program not working together. to NO social services now that he's out of high school. i finally thought i could relax and not worry about whether or not i beat my thyroid cancer BECAUSE of the health care act, cause i thought my son would get the expanded medicaid. now it looks like the supreme court who are OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY when it comes to people like me can just toss us out like the trash with the law. i'm TERRIFIED ALSO because no matter what the teabggers say, there is no showing up at the ER, you can, but they tell you to go "seek private care" and hand you a paper with a referral doctor. you call that dr and THEY tell you to come and bring $700 for a first visit. THAT is what they call guaranteed health care. this is NOT brocoli, this is not cars, this is OUR LIVES! and dems do not have a tea party where lawyers will see us free and get MY CASE to the supreme court, it is unfair for a few TEABAGGERS who have health care to DENY people like me and my son or your daughter and TOTALLY UNFAIR for the supreme court to be their MEANS of tossing us off. i love president obama, but somehow after we got him elected he is SO FAR REMOVED FROM THE PEOPLE, there needs to be a way to get REAL PEOPLE like me in touch with the govt and expect answers about health care.
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