NY Times - "Without insurance it’s cheaper to die.”

[TomCADem]

The cable media goes through great lengths to ignore the hundreds of thousands of people who have already signed up for insurance, particularly through State run exchanges. Ironically, Kentucky has had one of the best programs, even though its two Senators have been leading the charge to kill the ACA. I wonder how this will play in McConnell's Senate campaign?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/us/for-uninsured-clearing-a-way-to-enrollment.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

LA GRANGE, Ky. — Kelli Cauley’s fingers raced over her keyboard as she asked the anxious woman at her side a series of questions. What was her income? How many people lived in her household? Did she smoke? (“That’s the only health question it asks,” Ms. Cauley said of the application they were completing.)

The woman, a thin 61-year-old who refused to give her name, citing privacy concerns, had come to the public library here to sign up for health insurance through Kentucky’s new online exchange. She had a painful lump on the back of her hand and other health problems that worried her deeply, she said, but had been unable to afford insurance as a home health care worker who earns $9 an hour.

Within a minute, the system checked her information and flashed its conclusion on Ms. Cauley’s laptop: eligible for Medicaid. The woman began to weep with relief. Without insurance, she said as she left, “it’s cheaper to die.”

Known as “navigators” or “assisters,” people like Ms. Cauley are going to work across the country, searching for the uninsured and walking them through the enrollment process. Under the Affordable Care Act, these trained, paid counselors typically work for community groups or government agencies, with a mandate to provide impartial guidance. Given the problems plaguing the federal online insurance exchange used by 36 states, the workers have become even more important in helping people understand their insurance options.

[calimary]

1. Dayum...

Another great one! The more of these we see and share, the better-informed at least those in our spheres of influence will be.

[spooky3]

2. How ironic that a home health care worker can't get the care she needs.

We have taken only a baby step in the right direction and need to go so much further.

[freshwest]

3. Cheaper to die is why my father is dead. Confronted with an inability to get insurance because of a

'Pre-existing Condition,' no one would insure him when he was working virtually every day of the week from sunrise to sunset in his business.

He'd had several heart attacks and needed surgery. Finally he was given 3 months to live without it. The doctors said there was a very slim chance he'd survive the operation but that the cost, $100,000 in 1960s dollars, would still have to be paid.

He would have had to mortgage all the property he owned or had equity to pay for it and no one capable of making the payments. He would have left us with without a roof over our heads.

So he refused to gamble with the poor odds and lasted 5 months, mostly at home with an oxygen tank. He got up to spare his wife being bothered with his restlessness and laid down to sleep on the living couch and never woke up.

I remember when she woke up in the middle of the night and found him and called us out of our rooms to see him lying there. He was pale, cold, but at rest with the stillness of death.

I didn't find out what preceded all of this at the time but was told by the relatives who moved into the house to help me finish high school. His VA and SSA orphan benefits paid for my share of living expenses, there wasn't a dime to spare.

They told me what the examiner told them, that he was amazed he'd lived so long, with that much scar tissue. He thought it was only his will to live that kept him alive. They impressed upon me that my father knew that we children needed him.

It's hard enough trying to get well without looking at your life or death in terms of cash. Or doing what Obama's mother had to go through to take care of him:



I agree with what Obama says there.

[FailureToCommunicate]

4. Heartbreaking.

Even though long ago, it must still make you so angry at the heartless system that was fine with 'the way things are'

[TomCADem]

5. Yet, the media manages to disappear thousands of people who benefit...

...and instead highlights folks who are often misinformed into believing that they are worse off because they can no longer just use a catastrophic care policy.