Recently on Facebook, a friend I’ve known only a short while posted her story about the old days in America when any hope of health insurance was through employment.  Denise, I knew from the first time I met her, had been widowed at a young age with two little girls she needed to support.  It resonated for me as my own mother, widowed at 42, was suddenly thrown into a foreign world of trying to provide for my sister’s college education that was just one year done, my older brother who was struggling with 15 year old angst, and me at 10, emotionally devastated at what had happened.  When one parent dies, children often feel a knock-on effect as the survivor has to deal with the larger complexities of life and bills, as well as attempt to comfort all of us.

This is more of a tale about how we as a nation have argued back and forth about what should be the healthcare delivery system and insurance offerings.  There are a lot of problems with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) but for some of us, this imperfect and at times, aggravating bureaucratic system has been firmly a step in the right direction.  Denise wrote:

Just a quick story: I’m a widow who is a mom with two kids. When my husband was dying from cancer, his amazing employers helped us out. When we got the results, I knew we had to sell the house because I couldn’t afford cobra (health insurance) and my mortgage. I told him the day he got the worst news of his life that we were going to sell and fight for his life. Well I am still grateful that my husband didn’t work for a corporate company. They allowed him to die in peace and pain free while he fought his biggest battle. They sort of overlooked the insurance for a bit and allowed us to stay covered for the rest of the year. I went to college full time and the university allowed me to buy health insurance. I graduated in 2006. So I tried to buy insurance and discovered as a person with two part time jobs that not only I couldn’t afford it, but I was not able to purchase insurance. I had to join a self employed agency to purchase insurance for me, Lauren and Alexa. I had to pay 100 a month for that privilege. Then I went on to pay 1000 a month for catastrophic health insurance. What that means is we were not covered unless we were in dire, dire circumstances. I accumulated so much debt for our regular medical expenses and paid 100 percent for my daughters’ checkups. And when I was sick, I waited it out. I got really sick. I didn’t go because I didn’t want another financial burden for my family. ( do you see this insane juggle: my health, my life over money?). Justify that for me please. I waited it out and got fatally sick and probably caused more damage. I actually with a huge bill on my back survived. I had to leave my jobs but I survived. I’m grateful. But then I realized I still had children dependent on me and couldn’t work right away. But this time, I had a preexisting condition. That means my insurance alone was 1600 a month. And theirs, another 2600 a month with part time Jobs. 4200 month x 12. Today I have insurance. My daughters have it too. And when I see a deductible, I see it as a luxury. I don’t engage in conversations about health insurance because I’m incredibly emotional, mostly with gratitude, that it’s even a dialogue because there wasn’t one when I needed it most.

On the eve of a new president being elected in the U.S., it is fervently hoped that while a lot is not well with the existing system, largely due to the inherent flaw that allowed private health insurance get into the thick of it and rig it for their continued benefit and ineffective checks on cost and coverage, it is certainly hoped that we can avoid going back to the bad old days of being squeezed dry in the name of profits.

My own mother doesn’t seem to have had as much worry about our health in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which can only mean that the tipping point came within the frame of the Reagan Revolution of dismantling any government oversight in protecting consumers, through the “Greed is Good” era that still pervades today.

Without a renewed effort to make access to health care easy and guaranteed to all, we will weaken as a nation.  Even if we receive health care, the expenses will bankrupt most families.