Here's a newsflash: Our current health insurance system is terribly broken. Further, I have no idea how to fix it. The fact that I am clueless about how to come up with a solution, given my history of outspoken and outlandish ideas, shows the utter hopelessness of this situation.
Insurance is only readily available to those with a "normal" job. For the vast majority of my life I've had nothing resembling a "normal" job, hence I've spent a large part of my life uninsured. For some of the time I've actually been insured, I've been underinsured. In the last 20 years my family has had eight years of acceptable insurance coverage. We've had 10 years without insurance, and two years in which we were under-insured. In this period of time we've given birth to three children, and only one birth was covered. We've had several broken bones, two major surgeries, and countless minor emergency room visits. We've had several emergency dental appointments for broken teeth and lost fillings. We've had much-needed counseling sessions, and paid for many expensive prescriptions out of pocket. As a result, our family may never be out of the red. Our liability at times has exceeded six figures. We rob Peter to pay Paul, max credit cards to pay medical collections, but the medical collections don't stop, so now we have credit card collections on top of medical collections. We would declare bankruptcy, but we got VERY lucky a few years ago and were able to buy a house. We don't want to lose our house. We have five children, the oldest being 25. We would like to be able to help out our children, co-signing student loans, car loans, mortgage loans. But because of our past, that won't happen for many years, if ever. I'd like to think about traveling, even for work reasons. But without a personal credit card it's not going to happen.
So now that my financial soul is laid bare, why has my life worked out this way? I'm not a bad person, a deadbeat, a thief or criminal. I am a hard-working father trying to provide for my family as best I can. Today's financial problems have come about solely because of medical insurance issues.
Now, look at one of my kids. He's been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is something that often isn't acknowledged or even recognized before late teen or early adult years. By the time my son really needed the treatment, he was an adult and wasn't eligible for whatever insurance I may have had at the time. He wasn't stable enough to hold a job, which meant no insurance, which meant he couldn't get the treatment he needed to become stable - which would allow him to work... Taking him through the public assistance process so he could get medical coverage is an ongoing nightmare that is way beyond the scope of this piece. I'll write about it sometime, but it's not for the faint of heart. People with bipolar disorder have a way of finding themselves in bad situations, and my son is no exception. He found himself in a bad situation a while back and was severely beaten. His skull was crushed, and he very easily could have died. He was uninsured, and while the hospital fixed him up and put a plate in his head, to this day he has sinus issues due to the fracture. Not only would treatment for his bipolar disorder likely have kept him from being in that situation, I can't help but think that with full insurance coverage my son wouldn't be battling his serious sinus problems today. His life is forever changed by his lack of insurance.
