Don't Get Sick

This morning a link to this article appeared on Facebook.  I shared it on my wall.  It's a horror story of a woman with cervical cancer and early in the article it sets up the scene

She hadn’t gone to the doctor because she had no health insurance. The only kind of work she could get in a struggling rural community was without benefits. Her coat and shoes beside the gurney were worn and her purse from another decade. She could never afford to buy it on her own. She didn’t qualify for Medicaid, the local doctor only took insurance, and there was no Planned Parenthood or County Clinic nearby.
So nothing was done about the bleeding until she passed out at work and someone called an ambulance. She required a couple of units of blood at the local hospital before they sent her by ambulance to our emergency department.

It gets worse, and I hope everyone reading this reads the article too.
As I said, I posted it to my own Facebook page and got some interesting additional stories.  Jennifer shared:

A less severe story, but local: My cousin just dislocated her shoulder. She has a teaching credential, but the only job she's been able to find so far is a part-time position at her local high school's library/computer center. No benefits. Her boyfriend (who lives in Italy) was in town and took her to the urgent care. The clinic charged her $50 and then told her they couldn't help her because the doctors there can't relocate a shoulder. The other clinic wanted to charge her $100 for x-rays, but they told her they still couldn't relocate her shoulder. So mom took her to the emergency room. By this time, she was throwing up and dizzy from the pain (it had been almost a full day since the accident). Three and a half hours in emergency room, they relocated the shoulder and gave her some meds. She had to pay $300 on site, and they'll send her the rest of the bill in a month. Tana says if CA hospitals are like CO hospitals, it'll likely be in the range of a couple thousand. On a part-time job. Her boyfriend (who has national coverage in Italy) was completely horrified by the idea of someone not getting medical care because they couldn't afford it.

I've had a dislocated shoulder.  I can't imagine going through what this woman went through.  Later on, Victoria shared her own story.

I broke my leg last June 26th. I was employed with BlueShield at the time. In Oct we had to short sale our home as my husband had gone to AZ to find work (no construction plumbing jobs for 2 years). He found a City job . I had to sell, pack the home while in wheelchair and cast. I was told by my ortho that I on my way to healing and he removed my cast. Of course I had to resign my position. We could not afford the $1300.00 so we had not elected COBRA. My leg was hurting terribly and went to new physician in AZ on my last day of insurance. She had me get xrays immediately and found that my fracture had not healed AT ALL. I have a 2mm displacement and now I have no insurance. I had MRI paid for by hospital due to our financial situation but the reading cost $265.00! I was sent to Tucson Ortho who charged $260.00 to tell me I need a CT scan. I have no treatment now. And all insurance companies I applied for have denied me for a pre-existing condition ! One even denied me for MENOPAUSE !! That would be Aetna ! Waiting for Mike's job to become FT.. So we will have insurance. Now I am living on Tramadol and pain. Ironically... I was a pre-exsisting claims processor at BS for the past 6 yrs. Is this my penance ??

Ronald sums it up very nicely:

And this type of scenario is repeated hundreds if not thousands of times daily in this country. My God, where is our decency, compassion and common sense!

I don't want to wish harm to befall anyone, but there is a black corner in my heart which hopes that all of those fire'n'brimstone Obamacare haters find themselves in a position where they or someone in their family is seriously ill, and they have no insurance.  And that the politician (I've forgotten who it was now) who was asked what someone needs to do when faced with such a situation and blythly said "I guess you don't get treatment..." knows the pain of watching a loved one suffer because nobody will treat her because she has no insurance and can't get any because she has a pre-existing condition.  Like menopause.  Sheesh!

We Americans used to be good, caring people--or maybe I was living in a false rosy haze.  Now it seems that we don't give a fig for our fellow humans, just so long as we and our family and friends all have ours, the hell with everyone else.

Once again, I ask the God-fearing Christians -- in a situation like this, what would Jesus do????  Would they be acting like your legislators?  

---

Happy 4th birthday, Brianna...we'll miss you today!