pauljpoposky
16th October 2009, 17:50
since Halloween is just around the corner, please let me tell you a scary story... the story I am about to share with you all is all the more terrifying because it is a TRUE story...
My fiance is currently sick with a staph infection which should have been controllable. She and I both work in Special Education. But because the Special School District of St. Louis County has inexplicably succeeded for years in preventing the Autism Therapists and Teachers' Aides from organizing a union, we have NO CONTRACT and no representation, no collective bargaining. The district has created a favoritism based two-tiered system, both tiers are hourly and considered "work at will", though the higher tier - which I fall into - comes with (crappy) paid benefits and paid sick days. Julie, my fiance, falls into the bottom tier which offers NO benefits and NO paid sick days. She was bitten by a mentally handicapped student earlier in the year who frequently comes to school with a persistent "rash". A short time later my un-insured fiance inexplicably came down with a staph infection and two other aides in her building came down with pneumonia (caused by staph). Julie sought treatment at Walgreens' "take care" clinic but the overworked, underpaid nurse practicioner prescribed her the wrong medicine and her infection worsened. Because Julie was uninsured she avoided going to the hospital and because she had already had bad experiences with insurance when she had it once (a policy she purchased out-of pocket) and Julie has a history of eczema (pre-existing conditionn) she risked DEATH all because of a totally preventable and treatable condition, what should have never moved beyond being a MINOR infection.
When our employer found out Julie was on antibiotics for a staph infection and two other employees were sick with pneumonia, a supervisor and the school nurse sent them home and told them not to come back until they'd seen a doctor. How was Julie supposed to see a doctor she couldn't afford to pay?!?!? so Julie got a referral to a dermatologist who tried to sell her cosmetic cremes for her eczema instead of treating her potentially fatal staph infection. Julie had to fight with the doctors office to get on an oral medication to finally wipe out the infection, and we still don't know if she's out of the woods yet. When Julie returned to work three days later with a doctor's note she learned that her two uninsured co-workers had their jobs threatened for being out sick, BUT THEY WERE ALL TOLD TO GO HOME! They get no paid sick days! NO HEALTH BENEFITS from the employer who sent them home and told them not to come back without a doctors note but was now threatening their jobs!
Julie, who has no union to turn to, is now working a second job in the evening to pay the bills and quitting in disgust next month to take a HUGE pay cut, leaving education to go work as a cashier/food prep at a bakery. She found out this week that if she'd been referred to an infectious disease specialist instead of a dermatologist she could have saved money and gotten the treatment she needed more quickly without having to fight the dermatologist for it. But how was she supposed to know any of that? Julie is an Autism Therapist, not a medical professional. Without insurance Julie had no idea how to navigate the healthcare system and had to rely on an overworked, underpaid employee of a for-profit clinic AND she had to pay 100% of the cost for her treatment out of pocket. Anyone who works in education, especially at an entry level, could tell you that we don't make enough to plan for such things, don't make near enough to put away any $$$ at the end of the month.
A lot of people don't have that extra money. That is just one of the many, many (47million) reasons why we need a Single Payer, EVERYBODY in, NOBODY left out, improved and expanded MEDICARE FOR ALL; a National Health Service akin to what France, Spain, the UK or Canada has. We need to toss out the baby with the bathwater where health"care" is concerned. Obama"care" won't cut it, the "public" option is a joke, and the real problem is the Private Option; the for-profit insurers and HMOs and big PhRMA who bankrolled the Democrats AND Obama's electoral campaigns and who Obama and the Dems are pulling out all the stops to protect. Insurers practically wrote the Baucus Bill and Obama and Co cut quiet backroom deals with big PhRMA and the big for-profit hospitals before public the public debate and media coverage even began this spring.
The "uniquely American" system (as Prez Barack Obama calls it) of health non-care, rationing based on economic privilege, nearly KILLED my fiance, as it could have killed my father last year (diabetes), as it denies my mother care for her MS, as it denies my baby brother care for his congenetal heart defect or denies my sister care for her asthma. My family isn't profitable enough so it makes sense by the ill-logic of this twisted system to just let them die; when anyone raises concern at this the system points the finger AT ITS VICTIMS, says maybe they made "bad choices"... I don't know how many mentally healthy people I've ever met who "chose" to get sick.
ANY plan that involves and maintains any role at all for these murderous bastard insurance companies is worse than doing nothing at all, and I don't care if its Obama's plan its still worse than doing nothing. Mandating individuals purchase benefits from for-profit insureres and punishing those who don't with tax fines (like they do in Massachusetts) will NEVER achieve universal coverage - besides, insurance "coverage" does NOTHING to insure that sick people receive the HealthCARE they need - only by completely removing health insurance companies from the healthcare equations - not surgically, but with a chainsaw - can we truly have universal healthCARE for ALL. The only healthCARE guaranteed to be "affordable" to ALL is FREE healthCARE!
we need our unions to stop talking and start showing us some action on Single Payer! Single Payer or NOTHING!
My fiance is currently sick with a staph infection which should have been controllable. She and I both work in Special Education. But because the Special School District of St. Louis County has inexplicably succeeded for years in preventing the Autism Therapists and Teachers' Aides from organizing a union, we have NO CONTRACT and no representation, no collective bargaining. The district has created a favoritism based two-tiered system, both tiers are hourly and considered "work at will", though the higher tier - which I fall into - comes with (crappy) paid benefits and paid sick days. Julie, my fiance, falls into the bottom tier which offers NO benefits and NO paid sick days. She was bitten by a mentally handicapped student earlier in the year who frequently comes to school with a persistent "rash". A short time later my un-insured fiance inexplicably came down with a staph infection and two other aides in her building came down with pneumonia (caused by staph). Julie sought treatment at Walgreens' "take care" clinic but the overworked, underpaid nurse practicioner prescribed her the wrong medicine and her infection worsened. Because Julie was uninsured she avoided going to the hospital and because she had already had bad experiences with insurance when she had it once (a policy she purchased out-of pocket) and Julie has a history of eczema (pre-existing conditionn) she risked DEATH all because of a totally preventable and treatable condition, what should have never moved beyond being a MINOR infection.
When our employer found out Julie was on antibiotics for a staph infection and two other employees were sick with pneumonia, a supervisor and the school nurse sent them home and told them not to come back until they'd seen a doctor. How was Julie supposed to see a doctor she couldn't afford to pay?!?!? so Julie got a referral to a dermatologist who tried to sell her cosmetic cremes for her eczema instead of treating her potentially fatal staph infection. Julie had to fight with the doctors office to get on an oral medication to finally wipe out the infection, and we still don't know if she's out of the woods yet. When Julie returned to work three days later with a doctor's note she learned that her two uninsured co-workers had their jobs threatened for being out sick, BUT THEY WERE ALL TOLD TO GO HOME! They get no paid sick days! NO HEALTH BENEFITS from the employer who sent them home and told them not to come back without a doctors note but was now threatening their jobs!
Julie, who has no union to turn to, is now working a second job in the evening to pay the bills and quitting in disgust next month to take a HUGE pay cut, leaving education to go work as a cashier/food prep at a bakery. She found out this week that if she'd been referred to an infectious disease specialist instead of a dermatologist she could have saved money and gotten the treatment she needed more quickly without having to fight the dermatologist for it. But how was she supposed to know any of that? Julie is an Autism Therapist, not a medical professional. Without insurance Julie had no idea how to navigate the healthcare system and had to rely on an overworked, underpaid employee of a for-profit clinic AND she had to pay 100% of the cost for her treatment out of pocket. Anyone who works in education, especially at an entry level, could tell you that we don't make enough to plan for such things, don't make near enough to put away any $$$ at the end of the month.
A lot of people don't have that extra money. That is just one of the many, many (47million) reasons why we need a Single Payer, EVERYBODY in, NOBODY left out, improved and expanded MEDICARE FOR ALL; a National Health Service akin to what France, Spain, the UK or Canada has. We need to toss out the baby with the bathwater where health"care" is concerned. Obama"care" won't cut it, the "public" option is a joke, and the real problem is the Private Option; the for-profit insurers and HMOs and big PhRMA who bankrolled the Democrats AND Obama's electoral campaigns and who Obama and the Dems are pulling out all the stops to protect. Insurers practically wrote the Baucus Bill and Obama and Co cut quiet backroom deals with big PhRMA and the big for-profit hospitals before public the public debate and media coverage even began this spring.
The "uniquely American" system (as Prez Barack Obama calls it) of health non-care, rationing based on economic privilege, nearly KILLED my fiance, as it could have killed my father last year (diabetes), as it denies my mother care for her MS, as it denies my baby brother care for his congenetal heart defect or denies my sister care for her asthma. My family isn't profitable enough so it makes sense by the ill-logic of this twisted system to just let them die; when anyone raises concern at this the system points the finger AT ITS VICTIMS, says maybe they made "bad choices"... I don't know how many mentally healthy people I've ever met who "chose" to get sick.
ANY plan that involves and maintains any role at all for these murderous bastard insurance companies is worse than doing nothing at all, and I don't care if its Obama's plan its still worse than doing nothing. Mandating individuals purchase benefits from for-profit insureres and punishing those who don't with tax fines (like they do in Massachusetts) will NEVER achieve universal coverage - besides, insurance "coverage" does NOTHING to insure that sick people receive the HealthCARE they need - only by completely removing health insurance companies from the healthcare equations - not surgically, but with a chainsaw - can we truly have universal healthCARE for ALL. The only healthCARE guaranteed to be "affordable" to ALL is FREE healthCARE!
we need our unions to stop talking and start showing us some action on Single Payer! Single Payer or NOTHING!