How I Became a One-Issue Voter

Single issue voters always bothered me, always made me wonder, “How can you exclude everything save for that one issue (that often does not even affect you or your family directly or personally), whether it’s abortion, or guns, or the environment?” Please note, there are one-issue voters on both poles of all those issues.

However, I fear that I have become a one-issue voter myself, because I confess that a politician will NEVER get my vote if (s)he threatens affordable access to health care for people who have pre-existing conditions. And, no, (I am looking at you, Josh Hawley and Ann Wagner) saying you’ll fix it after you take it away doesn’t count. I would point out that Republicans (and it is generally Republicans who are (or at least were until the issue became toxic) threatening to take away affordable coverage for those pre-existing conditions) controlled the Congress and Presidency for 6 straight years during Bush-45 and barely even gave lip-service to the issue, much less took action.

For me this issue is personal. I have a daughter and granddaughter with auto-immune diseases. They deserve access to affordable health care. Everybody does. So any politician who threatens their access will never get my vote. And if you tell me it’s not important (because you don’t have to deal with it – yet), then you are my political enemy.

And if you, or someone you love or care about, doesn’t have a pre-existing condition, you can be thankful and then add the word, “yet.” Because, and especially if insurance companies get to decide what constitutes a pre-exisiting condition, it is almost inevitable that this issue will touch you. Yes, you may have a job with health benefits now, but how confident are you that that will be true in a year, or five, or ten…. Or will you be afraid to change jobs, take a promotion, for fear that your precious (and it is, indeed, precious) health insurance that covers now or future health challenges might change? Who can afford to wait for MediCare (which does cover those pre-exisiting conditions)?

A caring society cares for the health of all its citizens. Access to affordable health care is a right (to life).

Adventures in Health Care, Part III -- My Family is More Than a Burned Down House*

The week before Christmas my granddaughter, Becca, began her own introduction to the health care system. This will ongoing and lifelong as she was diagnosed and will now live with, T1D (Type 1 Diabetes, formerly known as Juvenile Diabetes). She is adapting remarkably well. She started doing her finger sticks shortly after being discharged from the ICU and has progressed to giving herself shots. Of course, she has witnessed her mother (RA) giving herself shots for years.

So now both my daughter and granddaughter have, through no fault of their own, contracted chronic autoimmune diseases. Thanks to medical advances, there are treatments for both of these diseases. However, the treatments are extremely expensive, and without insurance, good insurance, I’m not sure how well we could afford for them to be covered.

Prior to Obamacare (aka the ACA, less than 8 years ago), those pre-existing conditions would have eliminated them from being eligible for any kind of insurance coverage except through an employer’s plan. And when my daughter lost her job (which she did, an early casualty of the recession, right after Becca was born), she became dependent on her husband for that coverage. Not only that, in those less than “good old days,” she would have been virtually forced to conceal her disease in order to get hired at another job. Why? Because with employer-provided health insurance, a company wouldn’t hire her and thus raise their exposure to the expenses associated with the disease. 

Back when I was negotiating contracts (including health insurance) for Hancock teachers, we knew exactly who were the few teachers exposing the pool to risk and causing our rates to go up. Because that is what any kind of insurance is. We all contribute to expand the pool and spread the risk. We are all helping to pay for someone else. Fortunately, my daughter has a husband with skills and a good job, complete with good insurance. Even so, the expenses they face for their meds are significant. And what would have happened had he lost, or should he lose, his job, an outcome never beyond the realm of possibility in our modern economy? 

My brother, with a serious heart condition, also needed his wife’s employer-based insurance until he finally qualified for socialized medicine (Medicare). I’ll draw conclusions and make some further observations about the system in Part IV, but I unmistakably have a vested interest in the pre-existing conditions issue. Please forgive me if I take your opposition to all things Obamacare-related personally. And, for obvious reasons, I also clearly prefer to have health care decisions in the hands of a doctor and not a for profit insurance company that does not want to cover the $2,000+ a month life-saving medical treatment. 

* See PA Senator Pat Toomey (R) for this analogy. To be fair, he didn’t leave it at that and did suggest there might be other ways to cover people without overburdening the poor insurance companies. I, personally, am not that big a fan of insurance companies, but he apparently is sympathetic to their plight. I am guessing their donations to his campaign are more significant than mine.