I make too much money. Just waaaaay too much money.
Never mind that I live month-to-month, have been inadvertantly overdrawn twice in the past year, and have to manage my expenses with weekly burnt offerings to the Cash Flow God. Being self-employed has its advantages, but the disadvantage is that you have absolutely no benefits. Zippo. Zilch. Nada.
Of couse there is no way I can afford health insurance. I just try to keep healthy and go to the local clinic that has a sliding fee scale. For the last year, I have actually been able to afford seeing the doctor. But that's all over now.
When I signed in for my appointment I was told that my registration from last year had expired YESTERDAY. Did I want to renew? Well, sure I do, I said.
Then I looked at the sliding fee scale. My income, as much as it fluctuates, is right there at the top, the PAY 100% column.
I buy my clothes at thrift stores. I'm eating ground turkey and ramen noodles for meals these days. If I have one more financial emergency I will be homeless!
Still, I make too much money.
There are many wonderful things about Alaska, but one thing that is NOT wonderful is the way prices are jacked up just, well, just because. An ultrasound that costs $250-$300 in the Lower 48 costs a whopping $860 here. I know. I had to have one last year. I bought temporary insurance the, and I'm still paying off $500 owed to the clinic I went to. (I had to have more than just an ultrasound.)
The feds set up the sliding fee scale. Not the clinic. Their grant demands they cater to people who, for the most part, already qualify for financial assitance from the state.
Meanwhile, a working person like me has to go without healthcare completely. I have to risk becoming a non-working person due to illness (and then homeless, because that's what would happy in short order, and if I survive then I can get health care).
What is wrong with this picture?
We are the only industrialized country in the WORLD that doesn't have a health plan for its people. Folks in Canada consider health care a human right. Damn straight!!!!
And SHAME on the government for enforcing a code that says that people who make barely enough to survive are now suddenly making too much money!!
You wonder if the statistics politicians cite at press conferences are true. The ones in power claim there are fewer people in poverty to make themselves look good, when all they have done is change their definition of what poverty is, so that people like me are now officially NOT under the poverty line. Magic math! Just move that poverty line DOWN! It's incredible! Suddenly there are fewer people under it! Wow!
Fight for a health care plan. It WILL be you, next. Even if you have health insurance, your employer is going to start asking you to pay more and more and more of the burden and before you know it, you will have to pay for the whole thing. For people starting jobs who have pre-existing conditions, such as asthma, as I do, I have heard that employees are being charged for two years on their health insurance before they are allowed to have any expenses related to their pre-exiting conditions. For someone like me, that's the same situation I'm in already! You might as well be self-employed!
Before you know it, you might just be in trouble by making "too much" money. Fight for health care. Your life might just depend upon it.
