Why Access To Health Insurance Is Important

Health insurance is one of my greatest voting related issues, because let's be honest, it's important.  It makes my medications (mostly) affordable.  Covers doctors visits.  Makes a $6,000 ER visit $600.

It hits me personally.   In my mid 20s, BCBS denied my application for individual health insurance.  I appealed three times, including a letter from my healthcare provider, but I was still denied.  I was working part time and applying for individual health insurance due to a trifecta of problems, including attempting to complete a graduate program thesis while, dealing with a new diagnosis of gastroparesis, and soon to be no longer qualifying for insurance under my parents.

BCBS is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, health insurance provider in Illinois, and having a different company would have greatly reduced my access to healthcare.  To add insult to the whole affair, health insurance applications are considered legal documents.  If I'm ever asked if I've been denied health insurance, I have to admit to it.  And because individual applications (not Affordable Care Act marketplace plans) are allowed to ask you if you have been denied, I have to fess up.

Now, I completely lucked out in that I was working part time for a family friend.  She allowed me to increase my hours so I could qualify for the company health insurance plan, and while it wasn't cheap, I couldn't be denied.

When Obama announced the Affordable Care Act, with its individual marketplace and no denials for preexisting conditions, it was a huge deal for me.  That a president was taking our healthcare crisis seriously enough to make a national plan.  Who could even imagine such a thing?  And shockingly, the premiums were cheaper than the group plan through my employer (which was no fault of her own, insurance premiums for small businesses tend to be higher than average).  It felt like my government cared.

See, my health insurance allows me to afford my expensive medications, which allow me to be the functioning adult that I am.  I pay into social security and medicare.  I pay into state and federal taxes.  I'm planning on my retirement with both a 401k and a Roth. 

With no health insurance I surely wouldn't be able to work.  I know this because several years ago I transitioned from one fibromyalgia drug to another, and because of their chemical similarities, I had to fully titrate off of one before slowly starting the other.  While worth it in the end, the process was one of the hardest things I've had to go through.  I had to take time off of work due to severe pain and lack of sleep, and I could barely walk. 

It was a good reminder as to what this health insurance thing is all about.  It's not just a voting stance, an opinion, or something only for a small subset of people: it's my life.  When you vote for a candidate that wants to restrict access to quality health insurance or who wants to put people with chronic health conditions or disabilities in a "high risk pool", it feels like you're saying we're not worth the effort.  Our contributions, whatever they may be, are not worth it to you. 

And everyone deserves their best chance to contribute.  We live in too great a country to not make that chance a viable option for all.