Brad, the manager at the Lima Holiday Inn, was enormously helpful and supportive of the Walk. When I met him, he agreed that it’s important to get the story out and told me, “it is really terrible with all the uninsured.” “Even if you have insurance,” he added, “I’ve seen how difficult it is dealing with the insurance companies.”
Kara’s 19 years old and had most recently been just under her parent’s health coverage. “But after nine-teen, they take you off,” she told me, and she’s now in the process of re-enrolling in her own plan. During this switch, she’s actually without coverage. She sighed. “My current job doesn’t pay enough to afford insurance and then, when I’m in college, two years from now, I’ll have to re-apply.” She’s got asthma and fibromyalgia. It’s a real problem, she told me as she’s “really worried” about pre-existing conditions disqualifying her or making her insurance too expensive.
Kate’s insurance costs her $200/month. She threw her hands up and exclaimed, “That’s a car payment!” She looked me in the eye and continued. “So, I'm 55 and no business not having insurance but I can't afford it.” She told me about her carpal tunnel syndrome, that she had had a mild stroke and a nagging rotator cuff injury. For the rotator cuff, she can’t afford the MRI. “Actually,” she added, “HCAP, a state program, can take care of the actual MRI but not the reading.” “So,” she said with a sigh, “I can’t afford it.”
Her husband doesn’t have health insurance either. “He’s got two bulging discs in his spine but can't do anything about it. So he can't work and spends the day reclining on the couch.”
Heather (on the right) is 23 and recently divorced. She had good insurance through the marriage and actually had significant gastrointestinal problems for which she had four surgeries. She had a gall bladder operation, colonoscopies, “they looked down my stomach too,” and also sinus surgery.
She now works two jobs (the one at Applebee's provides insurance but takes up the entire paycheck). “It's so strange,” she adds, “I have to get a money order to actually cover it and send to the health insurance company headquarters -- $120/month. But I went to the dentist and still paid $30. But without insurance it cost $40, the dentist told me.” She looked over at her friend, who nodded in sympathy. “I don't think insurance makes sense at all.”
Steve, a financial consultant, wants the government out of healthcare. He believes that health insurance should be private (and through the employer). “Government messes everything up,” he tells me. “Actually, I make my living fixing up government accounting troubles,” he added. But he does believe that the healthcare system could be much more efficient.
With an angry look on his face, Roger told me very clearly that does not like the Obama plan at all. But he also doesn’t like corporate interests driving reform. “We do need some change—it’s incredibly expensive," he told me further, citing his father’s case. He had gotten a pacemaker and defibrillator and, “Everything cost more than $200,000!”
