Grateful for society

I’m grateful today that as we enter a new year I received approval for Pennsylvania Medical Assistance, a Medicaid program that provides backup coverage for families with seriously ill children, filling in the gaps where primary health insurance doesn’t help. In the coming years this program could well be the difference between financial solvency and ruin for us, as it is for thousands of other Pennsylvania families each year.

We aren’t reckless, have never lived beyond our means, but it’s virtually impossible to financially plan for what we are facing. The costs of his necessary treatment are staggering – if I had to guess we’ve already run up at least $500,000 in bills since October 29, and it’d be foolish to assume anything except that our primary insurer will do anything to lose us as customers now. I pay for insurance out of pocket since my employer doesn’t provide it, and if we get dropped there are literally zero other private plans available to us – not one, the plan I have is the only option.

Looking ahead there are still enormous financial risks, both for us and for Wes. The ACA currently protects us by preventing plans from having lifetime care limits and consideration of pre-existing conditions, but if this administration finally has its way and completely dissolves ACA it’s extraordinarily likely we’ll find it impossible to get insurance unless I find a way to change jobs to an employer who can guarantee our coverage. Once Wes is an adult, without ACA he will himself likely find insurance impossible to get due to hitting common lifetime limits long before he was 5yo and through no fault of his own.

Every other developed nation in the world – successful, wealthy, productive nations – have decided that ensuring the health of its citizens is a first order responsibility of society. They spend less on health care, get better outcomes, live longer, and citizens don’t have to decide between health and finances. It’s time for us to do the same. ACA was an imperfect stopgap which nevertheless provides critical protection for families; its time to take the next step with a national, single-payer system; call it “the public option” like we did 10 years ago, or Medicare-for-all, but it’s time.