Don’t Torture and Kill To Give Me $Money$

I know firsthand what will happen to people on Medicaid who lose medical assistance. It’s much uglier than comfortable people imagine

First, There Are The Dead

My father died under the old systems of insurance before the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

My father worked at Walmart for most of the latter part of his life. He was a stockperson on the third shift.

As a full-time employee, he should have had medical benefits, but they were only offered on a buy-in basis he couldn’t afford at minimum wage. He had a wicked case of untreated diabetes.

My father didn’t exactly die young. He wasn’t 35. He wasn’t 45. He wasn’t in his fifties. But he was only 60 in a country where you are supposed to get a life span well into your 70s. He never met any of his grandchildren. He died just before the first one was to be born.

His life was cut short by his untreated diabetes which resulted in blood sugars in the 400s, a stroke, unhealed wounds, and a 200 pound weight loss in less than a year. He was a very sick man who couldn’t afford to see a doctor. The VA would only pay for his care when he needed inpatient services.

He would have been eligible for the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. My father could have gotten insurance and lived to meet his five grandchildren. One of them just asked me what he was like as only an eight-year-old can.

Then, There Are the Agonized

Being a poor person without insurance as a child led to excruciating pain more than once.

It was the Ears

In second grade in 1978, I rolled into a ball in a corner of our unfurnished white apartment and curled up against the gray heat register that ran along the bottom of the wall. All that Mama could offer was liquid vitamin E drops, which were placed in our ears.

Mama looked on in despair; the family did not have the money to see a doctor. In the evening, since the whole family slept in sleeping bags laid across the living room floor, Mama could hear me, lying not too far away, softly crying out in pain, moaning for hours on end. There was nothing she could do.

Finally, my brother, David and I, were taken to a doctor when our fevers got too high. The doctor made us wait out in the waiting area since we didn’t have an appointment, no insurance, and needed to make a payment plan. My baby brother screamed out in agony for nearly two hours. Other patients with routine appointments offered to let us go first, but the doctor said no. My brother got tubes in his ears about a year later. Later on, doctors would say I lost some hearing in my left ear.

Then, It was the Toe

I don’t know why I am prone to them, but I get ingrown toenails in just one toe. It was a lifelong problem until a podiatrist used a chemical to burn the problem away when I was an adult with health insurance.

But when I was twelve, 1984 or around this time, my big toe got infected, swelling with pus. It turned out to be an ingrown toenail. It required that a doctor cut off half of my toenail. By this time, Mama had Medicaid to cover her children, so I was going to be able to see a doctor.

However, there were copays with most doctors, and we couldn’t afford those. We went to the People’s Health Clinic where poor people went. It didn’t require a copay, but you had to complete a lot of paperwork to sign up for their services. Paperwork was not a problem for my mama. She was used to filling out paperwork as a means of getting help.

When they called me back to see the doctor at the clinic, he put anesthesia into a needle and injected into my toe to numb it. Next, he prepared to cut my toenail in half and then pull it off. I screamed and shrieked, “It’s not numb enough!”

The pain was piercing from my toe throughout my body. I felt like he had decided to torture spy secrets out of me. I couldn’t breath the pain was so great. He replied, “Well, you’re not paying anything for this visit, so just deal with it.” He continued on with cutting off my toenail as I cried bloody murder.

Today, I am Comfortable

Truth is, I am like other children who grew up in poverty. My body was ravaged by unmet need, and it bears the effects. I suffer from multiple chronic conditions.

But I live among the privileged group the Republicans want to shovel money toward, which has as its consequence that more people will suffer and die like my family did. They want my currently comfortable, let me stress that again — comfortable — family to get massive amounts of cash we don’t need.

In exchange, people will suffer. People will die. And folks are just la-de-da about that on the Right. The wealthy press for this to happen.

When did this psychopathy occur? What caused this level of depraved indifference to human life? Why is there no crime chargeable for this? I don’t want your blood money. Keep my tax break and fund a community health clinic properly. Add more people to Medicaid. Just stop giving my family money we don’t need when people are hurting!