Nine Months
Posted: January 26, 2013 Filed under: work, I'm my mother's daughter, stuff and more stuff, Doctor Schmoctor, ranty vent, cancer, fuck cancer, insurance, universal healthcare 3 Comments »My Mom called me this morning. Last night, her boss called and told her that she will no longer be able to contribute in paying the employer portion of my Mom’s health insurance. She can still have the insurance for nine months, but she will need to cover all of the cost.
My Mom has had the same employer since I was twelve years old, different owner, but same employer. This woman has been a part of our life for a very long time. She is a friend in addition to being my Mom’s boss. In the end, she is a small business owner. I know this, my Mom knows this, but doesn’t make this any more fair, nice, or humane.
Stage 4 cancer will make her un-insurable. No private insurance will touch her. She is too young for medicare, and although they are not wealthy, my parents will not qualify for her to be on state assistance. This is absolute fucking bullshit.
She is insanely worried. Worried about how they are going to pay for the full premium while she still has the insurance for these nine months. Worried about leaving my Dad destitute. Worried that debtors will come after him. Worried about all the how’s there could be. She was given an estimated 6-24 months, only having insurance for nine of them could drastically change the length of time she has left.
If ever there was a time where I have been thinking of universal healthcare, it has been today. If we lived in any number of different countries this would not be a worry. It is grossly unfair. Without, going on a rant, I will leave it at that.
I am worried for my parents. I know that when things happen, we will figure things out, and my sister and I would take care of my Dad no matter what happened, but again, I keep thinking this shouldn’t be anything they should be worrying about. They should be worrying about how to make my Mom comfortable, how to make things work for her, not how they are going to pay for things once they have no medical insurance for her.
Just another thing that is added to this already complicated, and horrible thing going on with this diagnosis.
It makes me sick.
That is terrible. So terrible. I’m sorry you have to deal with this on top of everything else. We were very lucky with insurance during Ben’s treatment. However, it was the same year I lived in the hospital and Ellie was born and had brain surgery and saw a doctor every week for the first 6 months of her life. So we were a HUGE expense to his employer. Ben told me at a HR meeting they were talking about changes to their health care plan for the new year and stated that there was one “major incident” for the company and then everyone turned and looked at Ben. How awkward.
How awful. I’m so sorry.
There are no words I can offer other than this really sucks. Noone should have to have this stress on top of an already horrendous situation.