Share Your Story: Thanks to the Health Care Law...

My son was finally added back onto my Federal Health Care Insurance Benefit after being kicked off at 19 years old from a previous employer/Federal Contractor.  It has been a blessing for him, unfortunately my daughter had just turned 26 when it became available for children to be added to parent's insurance.  I also have a son who travels a great deal and doesn't have any health care insurance either.  He has benefitted from national health care plans via the country he may be living in at the time; France and China are the latest places.  France actually helped him alot one year!  I wish this country would develop the political will to demand a national health care policy for all US citizens.  Reading the stories already written it appears it is still a hardship for many to provide self and/or family health care in this country!  As far as pre-exisiting conditions and insurance companies honoring this mandate; well ask me after it's mandate has become activated.  Health Insurance companies and employment plans didn't run to let young people be added to their healthcare; they waited until the very last minute which I expect will happen with the 'pre-existing' condition clause!  But I can be grateful for the little things; 1 out of 3 children have health care insurance and as long as I stay health enough to work; I guess I will have health care too!

I have benefitted from the Affordable Healthcare Act. I am now able to get health insurance before I was one of the many that were told they had a pre-existing condition. Unfortunately, I still don't have health insurance. Despite the name "Affordable Healthcare Act", I can't afford the $600-$700 a month price tag on the policies At which I was looking. That price tag does not include the co-pays and deductables that are needed as well. Maybe someday.....I just hope I stay fairly healthy until then.

Without the Affordable Heath Care Law,  my husband and I could not get healthcare insurance.  One illness, and we'd be bankrupt.  The Affordable Health Care Law is a big improvement over what we were facing.  Unfortunately it costs $15,600 per year ($1,300 per month)!  That is hardly affordable.  However the Affordable Heath Care Law has kept rates steady so we can budget for this outrageous expense without the 10%-25% increase in costs and decrease in coverage we saw yearly before the Affordable Health Care Law.  If the Supreme Court overturns this law we must organize, demonstrate, and be very vocal about our need for Universal Health Care.  Medicare for all would be ideal since it is already in place with only 3% going to administrative costs (vs 25% for insurance companies).   A Public Option would be an improvement.  Without some form of health care for all the insurance industry will continue to siphon off a disproportionate amount of American's wealth unnecessarily.     

I am a 62 yr old 119 lb female. If I wasn't living in the "greatest country in the world with the greatest health care in the world" I'd be in trouble......that was sarcasm, I am in unbelievable trouble. ALthough we are supposed to be able to get health ins. I keep being told I do not qualify. I have a diagnosed medical condition that is on the social security disability list of disabling conditions. I have been informed by both a Dr. and a social worker, that even though I applied for ss, they will first turn me down and that it could take longer than 3 months for me to get medicare. And my depression has been building, especially after hearing the applause ar the republican debates over the fact that those with no insurance should be "allowed" to die. In my situation,  I took that a little personally. And when your pain is so intense and the only help you can receive is from urgent care and emergency rooms, who can only treat my symptoms and not try to find if they can actually fix me, I at times am unable to get out of bed and get myself to a bathroom. Do any of you understand how horrific it is for a person who used to garden and can my own food is now at times so helpless I can't get out of bed. I called a crisis line a few days back, telling them I was seriously considering before I ran out of pain pills again, just taking them all at once and hoping I would just not wake up. I was taken into police custidy and carried screaming in pain down to an ambulance, where they again just stabilized my condition - even refusing me a MRI, even though I offered to let them put in on a credit card or let me get money from my small 401k to pay for it and I was refused. I endured 4 painful ambulance rides as the hospital tried to send me to a psychiatric hospital who immediately returned me to the hosp as I was medically "unstable". So they returned me to the hospital where they ambulanced me to another hosp, in extreme pain. The 4 ambulance rides I endured, I am sure cost more than an MRI would have.. I asked if I would be sent a bill for these ambulance rides and was told the police dept will be covering this cost. Thank God. But when they had me stabilized with the pain, they tried again to send me to the psychiatric hospital, where I was interviewed, deemed not all that crazy though I have been diagnosed with having no mental illness, or personality disorder but diagnosed with depression and trauma. This was in 2007? when I still had ins. (Cobra) which has since run out - no ins. since 2009, I think. The trauma was related to having emergency surgery for pancreatitus, in which they saw two tumors and set up a cat scan to check them out but my ex decided that while I was waiting to find out if I had cancer, my "partner" of over 20 yrs, the mother of his only child, divorced me and left me to wait three weeks alone to find out whether I had cancer. To tell you the truth, this was really just the latest "traumatizing" incident in my life. I have been traumatized over and over in my life since I was a small child, You don't have to go to war to get PTSD - it seems all you need to be is a female living in America to get Ptsd.I owned a home in Oregon where I did my gardening and even canned my own food and lived alone but in this condition where I cannot care for myself let alone care for my cat and a home, it doesn't matter much I am being forclosed upon. A letter from Wells Fargo tells me that process may be complete sometime in March. I am now in Ok. staying with a sister and not even a legal resident of this state. I have voted in every election since I came of age. This will probably be the first time I will not be voting.I have a Bachelor's degree in English/creative writing (poetry), put myself through school, paid my loans offs yrs ago but even though I have spent many years doing volunteer work in my community, I am an unsuccessful "capitalist" as I am not "money-driven". I have no record, tried always to be responsible - before this all came down so hard, my credit score was 812 in July, 2011. I am sure it has gone down now but it doesn't matter because any bank that would give me a mortgage at this point would be insane.I have alimony right now as my only source of income -  and as is common with alimony, it will and has been gradually decreasing.Am I really such a burden for society to bear for a while until I am on my feet again? Why would I want to live in a world that is willing to just let me suffer and die? Though it appears MAYBE there is a slight hope fro help from DHS who are trying to get me a caseworker, and help though they tell me in this economy it will take time. I am not sure how much time I have,,,,I have been dealing with this medical condition for 2 yrs and every time this chronic condition returns, the pain and damage to my nerves in my leg seem to be getting worse. The numbness in my foot grows with evey recurrant episode. And I know without proper medical care, it is only a matter of when I will be so helpless and in such pain I will again be considering suicide as my only viable option.I could live if I was paralyzed and in a wheel chair, even though I always loved camping and hiking of all things, but paralyzed I would still have reading and art (oil landscapes - am told they are quite good) and sewing, jigsaw puzzles, whatever. But even the bravest navy seal could not live in such pain as I sometimes suffer.So has the new health care law helped me? Sadly, my answer must be no. Because I live with a knowledge of a future that may again make suicide seem my only viable option. And I don't believe I am the only American that is faced with this.And I worry so about my cat. He never had a cat mother, he was bottle raised from a week old. I am all he has. He is 15 now, unable to jump in a chair or on my bed (though he tries) so he can lay beside me. But if I gave him to the humane society, he would never be adopted but put down. As maybe I should be.