My Health Care Horror Story: My entire family suffers for their profit

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    My father committed suicide over 13 years ago. If he had gotten mental health care maybe it would not have been so.

    My mother had a stroke 2 years ago. When she first felt a shock in her arm she went to a doctor. The doctor told her “Change your lifestyle.” They did not take more tests than the first one. Two weeks later she had a massive stroke. She is diabled and paralyzed on her left upper body to this day.

   My Grandmother (my fathers mother) is 75. Her basic insurance eats up more than a third of her retirement income. Her mortgage eats one half and her medication eats up the rest.

   My step uncle (my fathers half brother) is chronically sick with liver problems and suffers from mental health problems. He is in the hospital right now with gallstones. He suffers from intense paranoia, depression and other mental disorders.

   My sister suffers from anxiety and depression because of my fathers tragic death. She was only 6 when it happened. Now she is 20. I want her to find help, and I need the same help myself. Neither of us can afford it. We need reform NOW, for health care, both physical and mental.

   This fight for Health Care Reform is VERY personal for me. I will not back down, and neither should you.

     Simply put, our for profit Medical/Insurance/Complex is destroying my lower-middle class family. I have a huge stake in this fight, and I will not back down, not now, not ever.

    I myself am uninsured. I have not been to a doctor for a check up for years. I get depressed in cycles and have shared my story with others in this community before. This is not about politics, but aboput families. This is not about money, but about people.

   If I get sick or hurt I am totally screwed.

   None of us can afford private insurance right now. We NEED A PUBLIC OPTION to break up the Monopolies of Private for-profit insurers.

   And I am not alone. There are 47+ million more just like me.

   And there are over 100 million more Americans who pay too much for insurance that can be taken away just when they need it the most.

   Therefore, I propose a running diary series by anyone who wishes to tell their personal Health Care Horror Story.

My Health Care Horror Story

  In the spirit and tradition of the IGTNT series and the GUS series, among other and many fine DKos traditions, I propose a series of diaries that detail the very personal costs that our for-profit health care system takes from American families in order to give profits to the Medical/Insurance/Complex.

  This can not continue. We need drastic reform now.

  Such a series should continue until we get that reform.

  And we should share our stories and e-mail them to the White House and our Congressmembers.

Simply begin your diary with the words My Health Care Horror Story

   And then share your tale and state how reform can help you and your loved ones, as well as our nation.

    DKos user War on Error and I had a conversation yesterday that inspired this idea, and I would like to give that user all the credit that is due.

Also, here’s the seed of an idea.  Can you get it passed up to Kos?

I would like to see hundreds of diaries whose titles begin with:

HORROR HEALTH STORY:  Name of Insurer or Uninsured

Then the Intro be a brief overview of how the insured has been abused and suffers.  Their story.  The more personal a story is, the more others can relate to it.

The Body can be a brief listing of their out of pocket

expenses or something.

If each of these real life horror stories, and it sounds like you have three in your family alone, BEGINS with the same three words:  HEALTH HORROR STORY

It will be easy to use the “search stories and diaries” to bring up a list of them.  Search:  “Health Horror Story”

Also, google will crawl and pick up the title.  The whole world will be able to look in.  It won’t hurt Kos’s bottom line for sure!

Imagine hundreds even thousands turning up in the search.  We can invite even non dkos players to sign on and share.  A center for collecting everyone’s stories.  This is a service that is lacking!

DKos is making network, cable news lately.  I think this would get some attention, especially if we all make comments elsewhere (FDS, HP, NYT, WaPo), etc inviting people to come and check them out, and even contribute.

We can collect thousands of Health Horror Stories under this one roof.

What do you think of this idea?  Someone with more clout/rank than WoE could launch this invitation for people to share.  Even Kos!

Naive perhaps, but I believe if even the most hard hearted read these they will soften their hearts so a policy to care for all Americans can eventually become the law in America.

Thanks for listening.

    My tweak to this idea is to make the title of the series My Health Care Horror Story, so as to keep it personal, but, otherwise I think this idea is spot on and brilliant.

    There are hundreds of reasons why we MUST pass health care reform this year, many of which have already been articulated by our President and other Demcratic members of congress.

    But, the point is that We The People have to speak up, fight back and Yell Louder. We need to be heard. I hope this is one way to do so.

    Had affordable and easy to access health and metal health care been available perhaps my father would still be with me. Perhaps my mother would not have had a stroke Perhaps my uncle and sister would be better capable of dealing with their mental health issues. Perhaps my Grandmother would be able to enjoy her well earned retriement better. Perhaps my entire life would have been entirely different.

   I do not know where this ends. But I know where it must begin.

   It must begin NOW. With meaningful reform that keeps health insurers honest and breaks up their regional monopolies with a Robust Public Option, end of life counseling and everything else working American families have been denied by our For-profit health care system.

   We MUST start putting people before profit, and only true reform can do that for us.

   Because, if we do not, and I or one of my loved ones gets sick or hurt, we are screwed.

   And that is what this fight is for.

   No excuses.

Thank you for your time,

MoT