Voice of the People: Nate in Ft. Wayne, IN

Nate’s a young and relatively healthy guy. “Last year, in December, I came down with pneumonia,” he told me. He’s a diabetic and so his illness was complicated by diabetic ketoacidosis, acute kidney failure, staph infections, and ‘cardiac issues.’ “I was in the ICU for twelve days, unconscious for a week,” he told me. Even though he just been laid from his job, he told me, “he was lucky in the timing of things … like a ‘roll-of-the-dice,’” that he happened to have insurance just when he had gotten deathly ill. And hopefully he won’t get so sick again, since COBRA, which he cannot now afford, costs $800/month especially with his pre-existing conditions … and especially being unemployed.