I have been purchasing independent health insurance for the better part of twenty four years. The price of my current health insurance with my currently well known carrier is $235.00 a month. In order to keep roughly the same policy it will be going up to $450.34 a month starting in January.
I would be upset regardless, however, I could almost live with it if I weren’t in the situation I’m in. I broke down and finally filed for disability a little over two years ago. I’ve never thought of myself as disabled and I loathed the thought of ever filing. My body didn’t quite agree.
I am the world’s longest living survivor of the type of cancer I had, given the severity of the cancer and especially, the severity of the treatment. Twenty six years ago my doctors gave me two years to live.
Due to all the radiation I had I live with a myriad of health problems. Everything from being almost totally deaf most of the time to exposed sometimes infected bones in both ear canals to almost everything I attempt to eat or drink going in my mouth and coming right out my nose to no thyroid or pituitary, for that matter, to really bad pulmonary fibrosis. And the list goes on and on and on and on…. I had had more radiation to my head, neck, chest and upper spine than is supposed to be humanly possible and that doesn’t include the literal liquid platinum that was ran directly into my head through an angiogram as fast as I could take it awake. But I’m grateful because I’m alive, where 90% or more of the people that have had the same type of tumor never make it past five years.
Then to make matters even more fun I was in a car accident over six years ago where a gentleman ran a red light and should have killed me. Instead it broke my left collar bone and completely dislocated my right wrist bone wise…aka…taking my right hand off, again, bone wise only. Now after five botched surgeries, a broken arm caused by one of those surgeries, completely messed up nerves in both arms and totally screwed hands with massive arthritis, dupuytren’s, trigger finger, etc… Basically, two just about worthless shoulders, arms and hands.
When I finally broke and knew there was no way I could work full time again I filed for disability. I had fought that notion tooth and nail for years before the chronic fatigue, pain and nothing working right finally whapped me upside the head long enough for me to realize the reality of my situation. So I finally filed for only what I had paid into the system over the years.
I was declined the first time due to I “didn’t fit in a box” so the gentleman literally said. That was even after they sent me to three doctors all saying I couldn’t work. The second gentleman was from Vietnam and literally didn’t speak English. So naturally I was denied again. I finally had my court hearing this last August and still haven’t heard a word.
I have no income, my family has hung me out to dry because they don’t have the money to assist me and my friends started a benevolent site that stalled out weeks ago. The house I inherited back so to speak is facing foreclosure on a hard money loan. I had to have it gutted three years ago due to I found out unexpectedly found out that all the wiring was from 1903 so it currently only has insulation walls because I ran out of money. I’m single so I have no one to rely on. I’m in maxed out debt due to what had to be done with the house. I also have $3,000.00 worth of medical bills for the disability hearing. Which I found out, that I originally filed only six months before I would have lost all of my work credits. That’s how much I never wanted to file for disability. I’ve paid for that choice because they can’t believe I didn’t file sooner.
Some of you may be thinking accident settlement. Yes, and, it was a joke. My own lawyers threw me under the bus. It was spent on doctors’ bills, debt at that time while I couldn’t work and then finally finished off with the house, as well. I had the house up for sale heavily discounted to no avail. It still needs about $20,000.00 to complete the inside. I live with a toilet and bathtub for a bathroom. A kitchen sink and a microwave for a kitchen. And, yes, insulation walls in the colder side of the NW.
Now I’m supposed to see my two main doctors on a regular basis to check my thyroid and I have to have my ear canals cleaned on a very regular basis. Exposed badly infected bone is not something I want to add to my very long list.
I thought….ok, I’ll look into what WA state is offering since I can’t pay for anything now, let alone $450.34 in health insurance because even if I am approved for disability I’ll only be getting about $1,000.00 a month. I stopped abruptly right before the end because due to Obamacare I know I will be one of the first ones put on death row. Something that has taken me every bit of my mind, heart and soul to avoid for twenty seven and a half years….since I was seventeen, almost eighteen and misdiagnosed for over nine months before going through the treatment from hell, so to speak…..that I’m still ultimately grateful for.
So where do we go from here?????
Premium Before Obamacare: 325
Premium After Obamacare: 450