Horror Stories

A few examples of the consequences of American Healthcare.

• Twenty-year-old Sara Broughton wanted to work with special needs children. But she was among the 28 million Americans who did not have health insurance. Broughton made several attempts to apply for coverage under California’s Medicaid program, but her applications were caught up or lost in the notorious red tape that are a staple of many state’s Medicaid systems. Broughton developed a sinus infection. She could not afford to go to a primary care doctor, so she ignored the pain. The pain worsened, but she ignored it some more. Finally, she went to the emergency room, the far-too-common healthcare provider of last resort for the uninsured and underinsured. For Broughton, it was too late. Her untreated infection had spread to her brain, causing irreversible, fatal damage.

• Hedda Martin’s chemotherapy for breast cancer led to cardiac damage, and her physicians concluded that she needed a heart transplant. Buta Michigan hospital committee rejected her, sending her to hit up family, friends and strangers for some cash: “The decision made by the committee is that you are not a candidate at this time for a heart transplant due to needing a more secure financial plan . . The Committee is recommending a fundraising effort of $10,000.” Martin was forced to turn to the GoFundMe website, likea quarter-million other Americans each yearwho go online begging for help with medical needs. Eventhat site’s CEO says, “The system is terrible . . . Politicians are failing us. Health care companies are failing us “

• These names are likely just a sampling of a shamefully long list of Americans who have died in recent years due to their inability to afford the sky-high cost of insulin. Three corporations have managed to corner the global market on a medicine discovered in 1922 by inventors who sold the patent for a dollar each. Those corporations hiked the price for a single vial of the identical formula of insulin fromless than $30 in the 1990’s to nearly $300 today. For persons with type 1 diabetes likeSmith,Worsham,Carter, andBoyle, a month’s supply can cost over $1,000. For various reasons that reflect typical life events — aging off of his mother’s health insurance for Smith, income exceeding Medicaid limits for Worsham, a lost job for Carter, a switch to family caregiving duties for Boyle — they came up short. They, like an estimatedone in four Americans with type 1 diabetes, rationed their insulin. The risk for everyone who rations is diabetic ketoacidosis. For these four, and untold others, inability to afford their full dosage was fatal.

These are just a few horror stories of American healthcare. The course of thse stories contained many more and it really saddens you to see first-hand the consequences of out health care system. Health care is something that I believe is a right and people should not be dying because they can't afford it.

Quigley, Fran. “American Health Care Horror Stories: An Incomplete Inventory.” Truthout, Truthout, 28 Apr. 2019, truthout.org/articles/american-health-care-horror-stories-an-incomplete-inventory/.