Above photo: Hannah Gaber/USA Today.
A Lesson In The New World Of The United States.
I have a sudden, now-common crisis: I’ll keep writing, but I might be distracted on some days.
Living as I do in the country, I sometimes feel somewhat removed from the suffering and chaos so many Americans are feeling. I think of people in trouble as being them, not me. I got my wake-up call this week when my health care plan was suddenly canceled without explanation or warning.
I learned this when I went to order regular medication for my diabetes and was told my insurance was suddenly canceled, and I would have to pay $1,000 for it. It wasn’t until I called my very expensive supplement plan that I learned it had been canceled.
That was scary enough. For me, a person with diabetes and heart disease, this was the closest thing to a life-or-death issue I’ve experienced since my Open Heart Surgery.
I’m healthy, but I can get sick any time, and it might require expensive medical care.
It was only when I had spent about 15 hours on the phone (with Maria) trying to understand what was happening that I realized my bubble had burst, and what was happening to people all over the country was suddenly happening to me, for different reasons and in different ways. After all, millions of Americans suddenly lost their health care this year, and I hear little about it; everyone is reading war stories.
Nobody in our government seems to be too upset; they are too busy pursuing liberals who like Nobel Prize winners.
What is most frightening is that everyone I talk to tells me a different story and offers a different solution, and so far, they have all been wrong in both. The stories I keep hearing are of confusion and chaos, with the health care system a wreck, especially now.
The health care people – and the medical people – are clearly overwhelmed. They are also prevented from speaking freely.
Nobody cares much about people experiencing poverty or distress. They have trained us to hate one another, not them.
I am so grateful to be working with the Cambridge Food Pantry, where I see evidence of this daily.
The people who do care – there are many – do help, and they are all over the country.
As for me, I’m already making some radical adjustments to the medicine to be okay up until April. I’m preparing for a few weeks with no health care. And for spending hours on the phone. If I’m lucky, I’ll slide right through it.
I am closer to understanding what is happening – a mistake from one of my doctors about my condition – (my plan requires confirming my health problems), which caused the cancellation. Still, once the program is cancelled for any reason, it must be authorized again, which takes about a month, assuming the problem can be resolved.
And it’s hard to believe anyone I speak to.
So I’m without health care for at least until April. And every time I call about it, I still get a different answer, most often from people who don’t speak English or from AI aides who never seem to ask the right questions, let alone answer them. I call it the Dehumanizing of America.
I don’t care what the Tech billionaires say – AI software is not a place to find empathy or concern.
Anxiety does not bother them.
It’s like asking a tree for help.
This was, and is, a very frightening week for Maria and me. We know well the consequences of losing health care. And I am one of the lucky ones.
I admit this has been frustrating, even terrifying at times. I have also gotten a lesson in empathy. I am no better than millions and millions of Americans who have it worse than I do. I never want to forget them.
As wrenching as this week is, I expect to have health insurance back by April. If I don’t, I have worse problems to face, and I will face them.
When something like this happens, my first instinct is to keep it a secret. Then I remember that I’m a writer and think of others. And my promise to be open when I began the blog 15 years ago.
I write this to remind myself and others of how cruel and uncaring our new government and much of the country are. There are more than three hundred billionaires and countless poor Americans who still like to blame immigrants for our troubles.
I am a resourceful and experienced person; I can take care of myself, at least for now. Reporters learn to do that. If I really need help, I know how to get it, at least I think I do.
But I don’t need or want help.
What is needed is to remember what life is like for so many people in this country, and how little attention is paid to them. That, to me, is the poison that threatens our democracy, not the “woke” librarians, whatever they are, or trans children.
