A More Conscious View of National Health Care

I write this after receiving our second rate increase notice in two years of nearly 20 percent, from a major health insurance company (Blue Cross/Anthem, actually ... Why not say?) on our family's independently purchased insurance plan.

My husband and I have almost always been self-employed, or founders of our own smallish companies. So, our family has tended to pay for its own insurance as a matter of course. And so, we are witness, quite directly, to astounding increases in premiums that come at least once, and sometimes twice a year. Our conscientious broker is always calling to apologize when this happens, and offering to shop around for a new policy. But my experience has been that every policy entails such stunning yearly increases.

So, we now pay more than $1,000 per month (US) on a policy with a $7,000 deductible. And, there is no telling when the next rate increase will come.

My husband and I (at least currently) enjoy the great good fortune of being able to pay this amount every month, along with the standard emergency room visits and X-rays that are a part of having young children, and that fall within our deductible, and which we are responsible for.

So, while there is some alarm on my part, there is more alarm in me for the many families, and individuals in the United States who cannot afford insurance, but do not qualify for poverty-level assistance, many of whom probably forsake buying insurance altogether.

"She'll get better, we thought. It's just the flu ... Within two hours, we found ourselves in critical condition at the pediatric wing."

My husband and I found ourselves in this position when he quit his job (with insurance) to begin his own company a couple of years ago. We had a little pot of savings that had to make do for six months or more. My own non-profit company was still reeling from the economic crisis of 2008. We forsook insurance (just for a few months, we thought, what could happen?) and, when our six-year-old came down with a virus, we were hesitant to take her to the doctor.

She'll get better, we thought. It's just the flu. When her breathing became so rapid, she could barely speak, I called the urgent care clinic. Within two hours, we had been through emergency oxygen delivery, from the local urgent care clinic to emergency room at Stanford, extensive testing, including X-rays, two ambulance rides, and finally found ourselves in critical condition at the pediatric wing of the El Camino branch of Stanford Hospital.

I could have been calculating what all this was going to cost us, but I was consumed with my focus on my daughter, of course. I found myself (outside of caring for her) mostly in prayer and meditation, as well as immense gratitude for the privilege of living in a country in which ambulances arrive within minutes, and doctors of extensive training, with access to an array of up-to-date equipment, are dedicating themselves to the well-being and survival of your child. As it should be, for everyone, globally. But is not.

"In the end, my husband and I came through one of the darkest nights of our lives ... "

I found that the handwritten entries in the prayer journal at the tiny hospital chapel could move one to tears again and again--relatives in total Love requesting assistance, with great faith, with new faith, with just the smallest seed of faith, for threatened Loved Ones. Relatives, friends, lovers struggling with terror and hope and fear. And I learned the deep value of this oddly situated, contemplative space in the midst of tubes and needles, monitors and cool white sheets.

At one point, I was told by a nurse on the phone, (when I had gone home after two days to shower and get a change of clothes) to just stay home and rest. Sound advice. But I knew instantly, in my heart, there would be no rest at home, with doctors still worrying about Alia's condition--not knowing what was wrong, exactly, nor how to treat it.

In the end, my husband (my whole family) and I came through one of the darkest nights of our lives to watch a silvery pink sunrise through Ali's hospital window ... quietly dawning on a day called "Stable."

And after completing financial assistance forms and preparing ourselves mentally for bills (we imagined) of over $50,000, we received a letter a month later, from Stanford's charity program, stating that all our bills from the hospital had been, blessedly, remarkably ... waived.

"I considered it a kind of miracle, not a small one, for our then struggling family."

I had not even prayed for this in the chapel prayer journal, but I considered it a kind of miracle, and not a small one, for our then struggling family, and one for which I will be forever grateful. Suddenly quite sober and still thankful, we diligently set about paying our urgent care bills, the ambulance bills, the follow up doctor's visits bills--there was negotiation, more forms, and direct-pay discounts, payments made over time ... And we immediately began arranging for any kind of health insurance to cover us all. We were lucky beyond belief. We had bypassed, somehow, two enormous and potentially devastating family crises. I will never forget this embrace by grace.

For a year, one of our children was covered by the State's "Healthy Families" program--an excellent and well run program for children of lower income families in California. And we covered the rest of us with a high-deductible plan. In little time, our fortunes began to change and we consider ourselves, now, lucky, privileged, blessed ... and also, therefore, responsible to others who suffer.

"Health care is not a regular commodity, as many of a free-market ilk seem to argue."

My point in telling this story is to share the kind of high drama that is often involved in health care decisions in the U.S. for middle to lower income families. Health care is not a regular commodity, as many of a free-market ilk seem to argue. The regular laws of supply and demand do not apply. When I choose to be treated (or choose coverage), it is not like choosing to buy a fancy and expensive car vs. a compact, cheaper model.

The choice does not simply involve my leisure and comfort, my "need for speed," or my self-image. Indeed, health care, except perhaps for preventative care, is one "consumer product" most of us would choose not to purchase at all. Health care "decisions," when consumers have them, are often grave matters of life and death. They can entail great fear, and even terror for patients and loved ones, and they can speak to quality of life for decades to come.

"We should not need to fret about whether we will live or die because of treatment we may or may not be able to afford."

A parent does not actually have a choice to treat or not treat a possibly sick or dying child. There is only one choice. Yet too many now must choose between health security, and paying for food, rent or mortgage. And I believe that in a caring, conscious and even highly capitalistic society, (I have no problem with capitalism) health care should be a right. We should not need to fret about whether we will live or die because of treatment we may or may not be able to afford. There is enough fretting in the human race about living and dying before we even become ill!

We should tend to each other, and care for each other. For me, that is something that government can help us do on a national scale.

My husband and I pay our taxes. We are not fans of probably most U.S. government policy. There is great squandering of funds, we know, and too many backroom deals on such a mammoth scale, that I can scarcely stand to think of it. Many people do abuse the system. But, for us, there are no attempts to "shelter" monies outside of U.S. borders, to set up complicated trust funds to avoid the IRS. We will pay our share into an imperfect system (has there been a perfect one?) and advocate that such money go to something valuable: peoples' basic health and well-being, and their feelings of security around such.

Jesus said, about taxes, simply this: "Render unto Caeser that which is Caeser's."

And what he meant was something similar to what Sydney Banks once said: "You must stop thinking about yourself, and think of something far greater."

Money is really, in the end, nothing. But peace of mind, love and compassion are far beyond all attempts to measure value.

Perhaps greater transparency is needed, as some have argued, in health care. Where do rising costs really come from? Perhaps being able to make better choices between insurance, doctors, clinics and hospitals would drive down costs in a "free market" way. Perhaps greater regulation and government support must also be added to the mix. But when I am rushing to the emergency room (there is one hospital in the town where we now live) there is no time, space or room to compare products, or evaluate possible services. I am not a consumer, I am a human being at my most vulnerable.