How will you be paying for your cancer treatment today?

This post has been a challenge from conception to execution. Frankly, it is not a subject I ultimately was eager to revisit, however, it certainly has shaped a lot of my recent opinions on health care and human beings in general. I hope not to be too boring or overwhelming with nonsensical details. The usual disclaimer applies on this post. I welcome any comments, but please be warned that this is a personal tale, and it has shaped my opinions on health care, and all content is my personal opinion, not a statement of right or wrong. Fucking deal or fuck off.

A little over two years ago, my mother found a lump in her breast. She was without health insurance. We walked into the hospital outpatient surgical facility, and began the check in process. At the time, my mother had not yet been approved for Medicaid, but her physician felt the need for a biopsy was immediate. When we explained to the hospital representative what my mother was there for and that she did not have her number yet, the woman stopped typing, and looked at my mother. “You don’t have your number yet?” Her voice was measured, tentative. Her eyes softened, and she delicately explained to us that no procedure could be done until a payment arrangement was made, and if she was entered in without that Medicaid number, she would be deemed “self pay” for the duration of her cancer treatment, and be financially responsible for the entirety. We needed that fucking number, and we needed it at that very moment, or no biopsy.

My mother, already terrified of both the biopsy and its larger implication, tried to hold it together. Her face fell, her voice quivered and stammered, but she did not cry. I immediately grabbed her cell phone and started calling every person she had dealt with from the doctor’s office to the county, trying to reach anyone for that magical number. The hospital representative made her own calls, to various people above her, a look of concern and helplessness clearly displayed on her face, as my mother sat looking distant, broken, answering a barrage of questions from both myself and the representative in a trancelike state. She could hear us. She responded. But she was lost in her own mind, concurrently thinking about the cancer inside her and how the fuck was she going to pay for treating it, or even diagnosing it.

It was in that moment that I formed my opinion on health care. 

Ultimately, we had to leave without a biopsy that day.

For those that want to know, my mother did not die from cancer. In fact, she is very much alive. The reason she is alive is Medicaid (and of course, the science of cancer treatment). We got our hands on that magic number the very next day, as a result of due diligence.  

You know what number they should have needed? Her fucking Social Security number, because everyone should have health care. It’s just that goddamn simple.

 

Oh, and now that her cancer is in remission, her benefits are being revoked. And she has a pre-existing condition…..