Protect Health Care to Give Everyone Best Chance to Contribute to Society
I delivered this speech at the Fight for Healthcare rally at the Colorado State Capitol on May 13, 2017.
My longtime neurological illness turned disabling without warning a little more than a year ago.
For years I had had a constant, severe headache, but I’d learned to overpower it. I graduated from law school, passed bar exams in three states, and started my career as a lawyer.
Suddenly, though, I was so dizzy I had to lie down during my doctors’ appointments. Severe motion sickness made riding in a car torture. I had constant black spots swimming in front of my eyes and so much difficulty focusing that I was unable to do the reading required in my job. Light sensitivity forced me to wear sunglasses even in the operating room where I had surgery. Noise sensitivity made airports, restaurants, and even offices unbearable.
Because of all these symptoms, it’s hard for me to be here today. But it was important to me to come to share my story because I know it is also your story.
It is the story of your friends and family members. It is the story of millions of Americans.
I can see from your thousands of signs how many of you have pre-existing conditions. Republicans make it sound as though pre-existing conditions are the result of bad choices or some kind of character flaw. But the reality is that everyone may be one unlucky turn away from a serious illness.
I am still searching for a definitive diagnosis. I haven’t been able to work for more than a year, and I lost most of my income. Because of Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, I am able to get free health insurance. I pay a few dollars to see specialists, have expensive medical tests, and get my prescriptions — even for a medication that costs more than four thousand dollars a month.
I know you are all here because you agree with me that making sure all Americans can get health care is the humane and compassionate thing to do. But it also makes sound economic sense.
Allowing me and other Americans to see specialists and get the treatment we need keeps us out of the emergency room, where taxpayers would pay far more for our care.
And like so many people who benefit from Medicaid and pre-existing condition coverage, I want nothing more than to be able to work and be economically independent. But unless I am able to get the health care I need, I will not be able to return to work. I will be doomed to a life of sickness.
The House bill robs Medicaid of crucial funding and ends Medicaid expansion completely in 2020. Millions of people will be kicked off Medicaid. If I am not well and back to work by then, I will be one of them.
The bill has another crippling effect on people like me — and so many of you; and so many who are too sick to be here today. Those of us with expensive illnesses could pay tens to hundreds of thousands more a year in premiums, deductibles, and co-pays. Or we could have insurance that barely covers anything. Or no insurance at all. Republicans insist that insurance companies will still have to cover pre-existing conditions. But if the people who need it cannot afford it, that coverage is meaningless.
Stripping people of the health care they need to contribute to society isn’t just bad for me or millions of other sick people. It’s bad for the whole country.
Pre-existing condition coverage and expanded Medicaid help me and millions of other Americans with illnesses and disabilities. But those health care provisions also boost the entire national economy by giving everyone their best chance to be contributing members of society.
We must demand continued coverage of pre-existing conditions and Medicaid expansion. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because depriving people of health care will cause the entire nation to suffer.
