Another Medical care story without a happy ending

[SmileyRose]

8 months ago one of the women who works for us ended up in critical care. I do not know what happened but she had a lot of problems working and since our small business can't afford disability insurance, it was decided to "downsize" her so she could take some time to stay home and let her body heal and receive unemployment. We kept her medical insurance on cobra, but the owner of the business - a REAL compassionate conservative (not lip service) - paid most of her cobra premiums for the last 8 months rather than his mere legal responsibility to allow her to pay the full premium on her own.

We have 20 employees, including the owners. The single sick woman caused our medical insurance renewal to triple. Yes, 300%. She was late for her portion of the cobra payment due Oct 1. Out of self survival for his ability to buy medical insurance for his own family, the owner of our business decided to drop her and rebid medical insurance for the remaining 19 of us. Today we signed with a very good insurance plan for less than what we paid previously.

One less educated sick woman. One. left to fend for herself, sick, on unemployment, will probably have to apply for disability. And what will she do for medical care until then?

I guess you could say she's lucky - the owner of this business is going to help pay for her medical care "off the grid" as much as he can. But it kills him that he had no choice but to dump her. He was practically screaming in the meeting today.

This man is a conservative small business owner that supports medicare for all - because of pragmatism. Even if it costs him a little more to pay into it for his workers, he never ever wants to be forced to leave someone out in the cold just because they are sick and the (as he put it) "fucking sharks won't cover any of us because of one person".

Medicare for all.


Edit to correct the numbers - she got sick 15 months ago and we "downsized" her 8 months ago and started her on Cobra then.

[AuntPatsy]

1. K & R so sad...

[HillbillyBob]

2. Most of us don't have an problem with real compassionate conservatives.

Its the wack jobs that have stolen the word and twisted it that makes us nuts.

I am social liberal because I want to see every one done right by.
I am fiscal conservative because I hate to see waste.
We do the 'green' thing with our home because doing the green things conserve the environment and our wallet.

I have repeatedly posted some of the things we did in hope of inspiring others to do them. They don't cost much to do and we are now saving 1/2 of our electric bills equaling 2400 dollars per year, dropping our carbon foot print from 12 tons to 3, meaning the coal fired power plant is producing that much carbon, mercury and the other crap that is killing all of us and our environment.

I want to see universal health care because I am a long term AIDS patient, who has been through cancer 3x, pneumonia 4x, a heart attack repaired with a stent and a femoral bypass. I landed on Medicare and Medicaid because my insurance dumped me when I had pneumonia the first time from a flu, I was diagnosed (likely had from either unfaithful partner or some blood products when I was 19yrs old I am now 47)

Because of that early denial of care/payment I became unemployed(party employed washing dishes in a restaurant not my career ) and homeless, I lost my home and my car which only had a few payments to go. I worked 2 jobs and had some sideline furniture restoration(museum quality) and working on others houses. Now I am lucky I can fix a couple meals a day and keep the house hold going. My partner (whom I am very grateful for) works an ok job and between my SSD and his paycheck we have a home of our own now, after years of downsizing and outsourcing and pay cuts our house hold income is about 1/3 it was when he got cut and when I got sick. So we moved to an abandoned house in the woods. The roof does not leak but it needs a lot of work. We are very grateful we have a home and that at least one of us is working, he also helps his mom whose pension 'got lost' after working for a company or 40 years, they were bought out and all pensions were buhbye. It is not a happy or unhappy ending, it could be worse or better, his insurance costs too much and only pays about 10% and he has health issues coming up that could put us back out on the street again.

[SmileyRose]

3. Bob

Kindof off topic - only twice in my life of just over 50 years have I instinctively liked someone within a second or two. You are the 2nd person. Yours is a somewhat sad post, but I smiled through all of it in a quiet kind of way. I really do wish I knew you in real life.

I wish you well (in the fullest sense) and everyone in your life the same.


I have no idea why, but I just felt like I should tell you that.