Now I Remember Why Ron Paul Is Scary

BLITZER: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?

I was very attentive during the first Republican debate. By Monday’s second iteration I was willing to be distracted. It wouldn’t have taken much more than a ball of yarn held in front of me. I was, however, attentive when Ron Paul talked about insurance and health care and death.

Here’s a piece of the transcript. It’s long, but it’s a reminder of why Ron Paul is scary.

BLITZER: Thank you, Governor. Before I get to Michele Bachmann, I want to just — you’re a physician, Ron Paul, so you’re a doctor. You know something about this subject. Let me ask you this hypothetical question.

A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I’m not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I’m healthy, I don’t need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it.

Who’s going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?

PAUL: Well, in a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him.

BLITZER: Well, what do you want?

PAUL: But what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not be forced —

BLITZER: But he doesn’t have that. He doesn’t have it, and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?

PAUL: That’s what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody —

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?

PAUL: No. I practiced medicine before we had Medicaid, in the early 1960s, when I got out of medical school. I practiced at Santa Rosa Hospital in San Antonio, and the churches took care of them. We never turned anybody away from the hospitals.

(APPLAUSE)

PAUL: And we’ve given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves and assume responsibility for ourselves. Our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it. This whole idea, that’s the reason the cost is so high.

The cost is so high because they dump it on the government, it becomes a bureaucracy. It becomes special interests. It kowtows to the insurance companies and the drug companies, and then on top of that, you have the inflation. The inflation devalues the dollar, we have lack of competition.

There’s no competition in medicine. Everybody is protected by licensing. And we should actually legalize alternative health care, allow people to practice what they want.

If I’m misreading let me know, but I think Paul is saying if you don’t have insurance your medical outcome is dependent on the charity of strangers. If no one steps up, you die.

I’m not sure that’s the society I want. No–actually I’m sure that’s not the society I want.

41 thoughts on “Now I Remember Why Ron Paul Is Scary”

  1. Gee, I wonder how we became the most powerful and wealthiest nation on Earth without government medicine and if it’s just a coincidence that since government medicine, medicine has gotten more expensive and our nation has declined.

    I suppose that’s just a coincidence, though. Just like it’s a coincidence that the part where he said that they never turned anyone away was ignored to fit the narrative and the appeal to emotion.

    1. Brad – In 1800 the median lifespan was around 25 (if you survived early childhood you would live significantly longer, but many infants died). By 1900 the median was around 50 years. Now it’s about 75.

      It has gotten more expensive for a number of reasons, among them “heroic” end-of-life care. We have the most expensive healthcare in the world, without the best outcome.

      The part of our medical system that compares best against the remainder of the world is Medicare. It is as close as we get to socialized medicine and those who participate don’t want to give it up.

      Are you saying you want to go back to the median lifespan being 25 or 50?

      1. The other reason why medical care has gotten so expensive is the profit motive. Especially for insurance companies. Health insurance companies provides no real, meaningful healthcare to a patient. They are merely contracted as the fiduciary agent. 1,000,000 people pay premiums in, that money is pooled and doctors are paid out of it. That is their sole function. Same as house insurance and car insurance. Oh, these days they try to make themselves look more important to the process by hiring the odd medical person, usually a nurse, to answer questions, but they send nobody to actually EXAMINE you in the office or hospital. And the for-profit companies have one goal in mind: maximum profits via minimal outlay. Here’s a real life example, using a mixed model, Medicare Advantage. My late father, when he became Medicare eligible, decided to use the Medicare Advantage program instead of traditional Medicare. He was, if nothing else, scientific and logical when it came to finding a company. One company promised him the sun, moon and stars. I should also say that he had several health problems at this point and was what is kindly termed “medically complex”. Anyway, the conversation was more or less this: Dad: “You cover regular, monthly visits to the cardiologist?” Healthcare company: “Yes, sir, you’re covered.” D: “And the pulmonologist?” H: “Yes, sir, you’re covered.” D: “And hospital” H: “Yup, covered” D: “And my meds?” H: “Yes”. And on down the list. Every scenario was met with “Yes, sir, we do. You’re covered. It’s all good.” Then, the statements from the insurance company would come in DENIED, DENIED, DENIED. Every question that he asked and was told was covered was, in fact, denied. Unless he argued the point. And, honestly, my father was NOT the guy you argued with. He could run rings around you logically without breaking the proverbial sweat. He could point out every inaccuracy in a statement. He was exhausting once he got you into a debate with him.

        Here’s another example of how the profit motive on the insurance end screws things up. My mother-in-law has traditional Medicare and the insurance she had from her career became her secondary. Up until 2 years ago, they were a not-for-profit. And they covered just about everything. She had even had the sense to spend EXTRA money from her pay to a prescription drug plan, long before Medicare Part D. In fact, she had that policy rider in place for her entire 36 year career. Other than some generalized incompetence in one of the original contract servicers, she could pretty much get any medication she needed. They even stopped arguing with us when they wanted her to mail order almost all of her meds, but they couldn’t always get the medicine actually to our front door, so we refused to mail order. Delivery was a HUGE sticking point. Then, the company she chose, of all the companies her system and union agreed to use, decided to go for-profit. What. A. NIGHTMARE. They chose to use the “Step therapy” model for some medicines. Or, as many of us call it, “Fail First Medicine.” Follow along if you can. Her doctor prescribed Lipitor to her. She’d been on it for years. All of a sudden, the insurance company said she couldn’t get that, she had to get another medicine. In fact, they insisted she try Vitorin for a while, then some other drug, then a third drug and, if they didn’t work, she could have the Lipitor. FORGET that Vitorin is newer and more expensive. The fact remains that they didn’t know her as anything more than statistics on a sheet of paper. They didn’t know that she couldn’t tolerate new medicines since her shingles outbreak. In fact, they didn’t care when we told them this. Lucky for us, an article came out at that same time where the CEO admitted that they use “step therapy” as a way to minimize their costs and maximize their profits! And his bonus. When I pointed that out to them and that they really didn’t want us writing to the committee that chooses which health insurance companies get contracts with, as well as letters to her profession’s newspapers exposing their greed, they backed down.

        All of this to point out that Geoff Fox is correct on this issue and Brad is wrong. (steps off soap box, bows, turns and leaves.)

  2. So, Ron Paul thinks that if you want healthcare, you must belong to a church? That sounds like much bigger government than anything I’ve observed so far. Somebody’s attic is missing it’s crazy uncle.

  3. Well, here come the “death panels” fear-mongering again. And look who is saying it this time. A so-called “conservative.” If this is not the most self-serving argument I’ve ever heard, then I don’t know what is. It seems Mr. Paul wants it both ways…but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. I bristle at the way the term “entitlements” is bandied about as if it was morally wrong. It is not. So much for passing the buck to those tax exempt churches!

    Yes, Geoff, scary times these are, shockingly scary times indeed.

  4. The problem with socialized medicine is that people expect too much. Let me explain – I have talked with people in other countries where the government provides the health care. They don’t have the “perks” that Americans expect. You don’t get a private room, you get a bed in a ward. You don’t get cable tv. If you want the extras, then you have an insurance policy that provides the “upgrades.”

    If Americans were willing to accept government run “basic” care, then it would be affordable. Most folks aren’t.

  5. You completely misread. In response to the question, “society should just let him die?” his answer is simply “No.” And he elaborates, “We never turned anybody away from the hospitals.” A doctor should never and will never turn away a patient who desperately needs care. It is against their Hippocratic oath. A doctor will always save the patient and leave the financial part of it up to the patient or his insurance (if he has any) after the fact. The whole matter of the discussion really revolves around, “WHO PAYS?” This is where Ron Paul is coming from in his answers, and his answer to that is either you are personally responsible for buying insurance or you take a huge financial risk for not having bought that insurance. Those without insurance must rely on their friends, family, neighbors, church, etc. to raise the funds.

    Allowing a patient to die because he hasn’t bought any insurance is sick, and so were any and all of the people who shouted “Yeah!” when the question was asked if the patient should die in that hypothetical situation.

    1. Dave – he said the churches paid for it. That’s why no one was turned away.

      He also said, “But what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself.”

    2. Here’s another scenario, Dave. What if the 30 year old in the hypothetical COULDN’T GET insurance? What if he had cancer as a child and thereafter, no insurance company would cover him in a way he could afford and could deny coverage for any cancer related illnesses that crop up in the future? And they do crop up. A friend of mine has a son who survived cancer in his growth plates as a child. He lost his arm clear up to and including the shoulder blade. But he was eventually cancer free. Except now, his heart is failing and his lungs are in bad shape and the doctors think that the treatment he got 10 years earlier weakened him to the point where this was inevitable. Without Social Security disability and Medicare and Medicaid, he would have died 2 years ago. His health is still failing rapidly, but he’s getting care and the possibility that he can get on transplant lists.

  6. Ron Paul has some good ideas, some great ideas and some down right stinkers of ideas. This falls into the latter category by some margin. I get the feeling Ron Paul would be best employed not as a president but as a reasonable ideas man as some of what he says makes sense. Ron is far too Libertarian for most people especially for me who thinks medicine should be about helping people by a single payer system. but I like the idea of auditing the fed. And some of his idea’s about foreign policy make sense too ‘If you hit someone and kill their family, they will hate you and probably hit you back in the future.’ He’s a staunch pro-lifer which I’ve never understood as a concept and his immigration policies leave a lot to be desired. However I do get the impression of someone who does want to help his country rather than a lot of the other politicians who just spout the rhetoric, he does come across as honest and for that alone I respect him as a person, I don’t agree with the way he wants to do things but he has his vision, message, idea’s and a lot of honesty and that’s a endearing quality in today’s political climate.

  7. I think you may have missed the point. Responsible people, people like you and I and the majority of your fans would never dream of going without health insurance; if they could afford it. We need to be responsible citizens. If your daughter chose not to have insurance, would you turn your back on her? I don’t think so.

    And to MXManners, church was only mentioned as an example. How often have you seen groups rally behind an injured or sick individual? There are countless examples of spaghetti dinners, races, or other fund raisers organized by schools or businesses for people that cannot afford care.

    What I am hearing here is the sad commentary on out society: If government does not step up to the plate for these people then why should I?

    1. Where we disagree is your idea that people who are removed from families or friends and can’t rally support from strangers should die an earlier death.

      1. A single payer system would lower the cost of medical care dramatically. It is a mathematical impossibility to resolve our debts and deficit problems without it. As far as the notion that Hospitals won’t turn people away. They do it all the time. They send people in ambulances to “some other hospital” when they don’t have insurance. When a hospital DOES treat someone with no insurance, they just figure that cost into what they charge everyone else, so YOU pay more. People who think “charity” can do this are ignorant of history. Social Security, Medicare and the like were created out of a dire need. There was a lot of misery when it was just up to charities to help the unfortunate. They didn’t come close to dealing with it. America cannot compete in the global market without a single payer system. Every other developed country has it, so their companies are not burdened with paying for coverage of their employees. When the US helped Iraq form a new DEMOCRACY and write it’s constitution, WE thought it vital to included a single payer healthcare system in their constitution. Why isn’t it in ours?

        1. I think you misunderstood my final statement. That was not my opinion but what I am hearing when people moan that if the government doesn’t take care of these people no one will. We are all citizens of planet earth and when need presents itself most of us do the right thing. The problem is when government does it, it makes us all a little less human. It makes it easier to us to turn our backs on our fellow man.

  8. I missed the debate the other night but thanks for posting this as I now like Ron Paul even more than I did before. Noone should expect the government to take care of the. People need to become respomnsible for themselves, and if they need help rely on their families, friends, and churches.

  9. Ron Paul is right on this. The society I want would give everybody a free ice cream sandwich every day the temp went over 90 degrees, but that would not be fiscally responsible. So Paul is saying we can’t have it the way we want, because WE can’t afford it. Ron Paul’s cuts are scary, but they are realistic. I didn’t take the risk of cycling to work until I could afford insurance. Now I’ve broken my collar bone. The gov’t shouldn’t have to pay a dime for my accident. My dad’s a baby boomer though and decided to eat like a pig for thirty years, and not take any responsibility. The gov’t pays his hospital bills, and that pisses me off. So yes, Ron Paul is a hard pill to swallow, but he’s absolutely correct.

    1. Joe – This isn’t like ice cream at 90. It’s like police or fire or public health inspections.

      What happens to a visitor in a city who is mugged and left bleeding on the street. Walk me through this. Does he get any help or does he lay and bleed until a group raises funds?

    2. Joe, like republicans in general, has issues. He’s angry. He thinks WE can’t afford it. We can.

      Ron Paul has issues. He angry. He supports a (libertarian) ideology that is fundamentally irresponsible and would have appalled our nations founding fathers. He is also an unbridled racist and while both of these qualities appeal to the nihilist, tea party-jihadists, he will never get the nomination. Nor will Perry. The republicans will go with Romney.

  10. Back in 2004, I was fortunate to have had surgery out of network (but my HMO paid in network for it) because the procedure I needed was not available in network. A previous surgery in network was terribly unsuccessful but I have been pain free after the second.

    I documented my story online and receive many emails from women who want to get the surgery also. Most from the US have followed my advice and gotten the surgery. Unfortunately, many women with the same disease from Canada write to me, distressed, upset and in pain, wondering how I got the surgery or even how I saw a doctor or had tests! I was so confused because my doctors all saw me quickly and I only had to wait a week or max a month for an appointment. They said it takes many months of waiting and it often happens they get delayed and rescheduled as more critical cases come along.

    They asked for my advice on how to deal with their system in Canada! I felt so bad for them and almost guilty I had my surgery so relatively fast compared to them. I was also at a loss as to what to tell them, how they can fight their government for surgery!

  11. MXManners is right on target. A single payer system would control costs as well as control insurance costs for doctors. They would prefer this as well. I think more people would be willing to have shared rooms and other things than most think and they could have private rooms if they want to get additional insurance. Medicare already works that way with the suppliments.It just needs to be tweeked so it would work for all. I think businesses would like it and would come back to this country with jobs as an additional benefit.

  12. I think that that Blitzer’s question, while an interesting one, is slightly beside the point. It leads to arguing about whether or not we should help an admittedly irresponsible person. (Which I think we should–I don’t want to live in a society where someone’s left to die because he’s an idiot; treat him and garnish any future wages.) Instead, we should be asking about how responsible people would fare under a Ron Paul administration.

    To that end, I wish Blitzer had asked a different question: What if that 30-year-old didn’t have health insurance because he couldn’t get it? What if his employer didn’t offer it, or he didn’t have a job, or he was denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition? Is his only recourse to look for charity?

  13. Sometimes I listen to those who espouse libertarian ideals and think “Hey- some of those are pretty good ideas”, and then I remember that I’m human and realize “Hey- I actually have a conscience so, no, no libertarianism for me”.

    My biggest concern about the upcoming election is whether to root for Mitt Romney, who seems the most centrist of all the Republican candidates and the least objectionable of an objectionable lot, but who probably has the best chance of defeating President Obama, or do I hope for a more polarizing candidate to win the Republican nomination, like Rick Perry, who probably has less of a chance of winning the general election, but who would be an absolute *disaster* if voted into office?

    Hmmm……

  14. I think his point is that it is about freedom and choice. If taxpayer A takes the $300 per month he should be spending on health insurance and instead buys a giant TV, a comfy recliner, the complete cable service, pizza, ice cream and beer, taxpayer A has made a choice to live his life in that way. Why should taxpayer B who is paying for health insurance and struggling to support his family be required to have more taxes taken out of his paycheck to pay for medical care of someone who chooses to be irresponsible and needs medical care?

    1. So if your parents are irresponsible idiots you should face a greater chance of dying for an accident beyond your control? I’m sure I’m missing something, but that seems to be how it works out under Dr. Paul’s guidance.

      1. Certainly we should not let children die because of irresponsible parents. But once you are an adult aren’t you exercising your freedom to live how you choose?

        I believe all public school & college students in CT are required to have basic health insurance.

        If I’m person B, why should I be required to work two jobs so I can feed & clothe my family and pay the medical cost of someone who makes a conscious choice to take a vacation or buy a new car that I can’t afford?

        1. Tim – I think you’re wrong about a health insurance requirement. That notwithstanding, how does a care decision get made on-the-spot for someone with a life threatening condition. The truth is this country would be much better served by a single payer insurance program which covers every person. It seems in the 21st Century healthcare should be a right.

          Ask people scared to leave their jobs because the job provides health insurance if universal healthcare would bring out a new wave of entrepreneurs? It would.

          1. Geoff – I agree that care decisions should not be made for financial reasons. But if healthcare is a right I would propose that the only way for it to be fair is for it to be a requirement. Mandatory health insurance so I don’t have to pay your bills. I should not have to work overtime, miss dinner with my family and live on 5 hours a sleep a night so someone else can be reckless and put themselves in jeopardy.

            I cannot find anything about mandatory insurance for students. I know I could not go to college in CT or MA without proof of health insurance and that was 20 years ago.

            I know that if this was an easy issue to resolve the solution would be obvious. I just tired of seeing the abuse and waste while it gets harder everyday for an average family to eat healthy and put gas in the car.

          2. My child (in an Ohio private college) is required to have health insurance, either the student plan offered by the college or a parent’s policy. Proof of coverage is required each year in order to waive the student policy charge that is on the first semester bill.

  15. If I may. Right now my wonderful father is in a so called re-hab center after suffering a stroke one month ago. He was rushed to the hospital day of the stroke,two and a half days later I got a call from the hospital “telling” me, that they were moving my dad to this rehab. My mother and I were never even asked where we would like him to go. Instead we got to the hospital and there were his clothes, stuffed in plastic bags with the transportation waiting.
    Now my dad is 87 years old and has fought one hell of a battle with cancer for eleven years. Once he entered this rehab, we asked about him getting his cancer hormone injection (which was due), and we were told he couldn’t get it while he was there. Now we could drive him to the doctors office and the doctor would give him the injection but we would have to pay for it, a mere 1800.00. Medicare wouldn’t cover it because he was in this rehab. His cancer doctors who promised to always be there for him suddenly washed their hands of this man. Stroke patients most of the times are left blind in the left eye, very confused and many times unable to walk, talk and many other things. He was the captain of a fire department and carried a great medical insurance. Medicare is a joke, they pay 80% of nothing and this city insurance is also useless..

    Both he and my mother worked and paid into these insurances for years, however its obvious times have changed.
    “Death panels” indeed.
    So, we decided to go back to the old days where families took care of each other, at least I know he will get quality care.
    Funny thing, as soon as his doctors heard I was taking him home, they started phoning, telling me they would be there for my dad. Really??
    Back in the old days doctors held true to the oath they took, today its a different story and before you all get on me, I know what I’m talking about, I’m an RN.

  16. Thanks Jeff for starting this thought provoking conversation.
    I have some questions about our present medical costs.
    What happened to Blue Cross and CMS supposedly non profit insurance?
    Why are the TV networks being supported by the drug industry?
    Who is really paying for their influence to get everyone on as many drugs as possible.
    When you are hospitalized. How can you check your bill to see if you have been properly charged?
    How come the drug companies are so very profitable?
    These are just some thoughts to ponder. There are many more.

  17. I second coras questions and have a few of my own like why would a stage 4 cancer patient be treated with chemo, when the clinical trials website says stage 4 is not treatable by chemo? So who is profiting from the cost of this treatment? And how come we are not advised of the cost of these toxins we are putting in our bodies? And why do we not treat body AND mind? Sorry . . . It has been 2 months since my husband and best friend lost his battle with cancer. 🙁

  18. I second coras questions and have a few of my own like why would a stage 4 cancer patient be treated with chemo, when the clinical trials website says stage 4 is not treatable by chemo? So who is profiting from the cost of this treatment? And how come we are not advised of the cost of these toxins we are putting in our bodies? And why do we not treat body AND mind? Sorry . . . It has been 2 months since my husband and best friend lost his battle with cancer.

  19. On the topic of parents and responsibility… We must buy our own insurance (because of self-employment) and the cost for our family of four is nearly $1000 per month with our Anthem HSA. We have a deductible before the insurance kicks in. Until then only preventative care is covered and not all of it. Each year the premiums rise. It is academic to talk about irresponsible parents unless you have been in shoes like ours. With the economic downturn and rising premiums we are squeezed ever tighter. Not everyone has a full time job at a company with great benefits! Until this year when my husband developed a serious illness we never made our deductible. Now we feel blessed to be insured, yet live in fear that we won’t be able to pay the premiums.

  20. I didn’t read all the comments but I’d just like to say that I should not responsible for paying for someone’s medical issues. If left to the private sector instead of socialized medicine, costs will be driven down due to competition. You don’t buy, that’s your deal. I should not be forced to pay for someone else to be taken care of. My family has a high deductible health insurance because that is all the company he works for offers. Do I run to the mommy government and ask for a free handout to pay the $4000 deductible when my kid ends up in the hospital? No. It’s called personal responsibility. More Americans need to learn those two words.

    1. Krystle, what we have NOW is mostly private sector. And THAT is the problem. You’re paying a boatload of money to a private, for-profit company and you have an outrageous, unconscionable, morally bankrupt deductible designed solely to drive you into bankruptcy while providing the CEO and other officers of your insurance company the cash they crave to deny you healthcare.

      Howard Dean was here a couple of years ago to talk about one of his books and he tells the story of his attempt to help the people and businesses of Vermont by taking some of the financial and emotional burden off employers and their workers. He went to the Clinton Administration with an idea. How about making Medicaid a middle class entitlement for all minor children, up to age 18 and from the bottom to the top of the government’s idea of “middle class”. Every kid, from the one whose parents are denied Medicaid because they make just this much () over the limit, to the point were, admit it, your folks are freaking loaded. Businesses HATED the idea. They called him all sorts of names, make all sorts of nasty comments, etc. etc. But the Clinton Administration was curious and granted the waiver. About a year after the program went into effect, he was speaking to a roundtable of local business owners who HATED him. If he said the sun rises in the east, they’d hold a press conference saying that, no, in fact, the sun rises in the NORTH. He asked them how his program was working for them. Sheepish. Silence. Finally, he turned to the guy who headed up the group and asked him point blank, “Joe, how is my program working for YOU?” After squirming in his seat for a second, he said that, in fact, it was working better than he expected. His costs were down, profits were up, workers were happier and less stressed and he even had more of his workers covered under the plan he offered because they could now afford it without having to worry about the added costs of their kids. In fact, it worked so well that he was able to cover his own kids under it and they had what they needed without him and his wife having to worry about uncovered costs.

      And, by the way, Krystle, you ARE paying for the uninsured. Next time you go to the hospital (God forbid, of course, that you need to), ask for an itemized bill. You will be shocked. That Tylenol you can buy for 10 cents a pill at Target? It’ll cost you $125. Per pill. That tiny box of scratchy tissues? About $25. Those IV tubes? Those will cost you a pretty penny and they’ll probably charge your insurance for WAY more than you used. It’s called Cost Shifting and hospitals have to do that to be able to stay in business and still comply with the law that says that they are required to treat an uninsured person at least to the point where they are medically stable and can be sent to a hospital that has free bed funds. And the ones that DO have those funds, it’s not charity. It’s government money that they take in advance and have to comply with certain rules. It’s also tied to their Medicaid funding. Remember a few years ago when Yale New Haven got into trouble for misusing the free bed funds they took from the state? They came so close to losing their Medicaid certificate for that. They were using the money for capital improvement or some such, not patient care and they kept “forgetting” to tell patients without insurance about the program. Medicaid is one of their largest funding sources and they’d be screwed, system wide, if they lost it. One example that I know about: For one specialty clinic at their PCC, they charge Medicaid $150 per patient. Same doctor, in private practice, charges MediCARE patients $55. And would offer that to Medicaid patients if he could see them at his office and have Medicaid pay for it. $95 to sit in an overcrowded waiting room, then seeing the doctor, then having to call and call and call and call for another appointment because, even though the doctor can tell you a date and time he can see you back there, even though he told them to release his quarterly schedule to make appointments for his time there A MONTH BEFORE, it takes weeks for the appointments desk to have access to that schedule.

      And some folks can’t AFFORD to buy health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. I thought that denial for pre-existings was outlawed years ago but I was wrong. It was outlawed with the current Affordable Care Act, though. This means that your insurance company used to be allowed to deny you, Krystle, insurance because you gave birth. Imagine having type 1 diabetes since you were 3 and now you’re 30 and you just got a new job. Now, you need insulin because your body doesn’t make it and insulin is EXPENSIVE. And the endocrinologist is expensive. And the testing supplies range from down right dirt cheap to damned expensive. But you will die without all that. Guaranteed. And it wouldn’t be painless and it wouldn’t be quick. And it’s NOT a result of your personal habits. But you just got a new job and they offer health insurance to their employees. EXCEPT that they could deny YOU, either completely or they could make you wait up to 2 years for coverage for your diabetes. Can you go 2 years without the essential hormone your body is supposed to make but doesn’t make because of a glitch in your DNA or whatever? This is a hormone your body uses 24/7/365. Can you go 2 years without? You could lose your eyesight and some limbs in that 2 years. You’d be in a lot of pain if you got diabetic neuropathy, which is nerve pain. Ever have sciatica? That’s nerve pain, basically. Imagine having that kind of pain, like your body was on FIRE, every day and having to work with that. And sometimes, you don’t feel it when you step on something. If it’s a sharp something, you could get a puncture wound that you wouldn’t even feel. And diabetics heal much slower. Wounds don’t close as fast, they’re prone to more infections. And those infections could cost you, first a toe or two, then your whole leg. All because you have a glitch in your body that makes it not make a certain hormone and all because it’s cheaper in the long run for an insurance company to deny you that care and face a possible law suit for letting you die so horribly. And they needed that money to pay the CEO of your insurance company a HUGE bonus at the end of the year for “cost cutting”. But that cost cutting cost you your life. And it cost your family a lot of money out of pocket, pushing them to bankruptcy. Not because you sat on the couch and ate twinkies all day, like some people think diabetics do, but because your body betrayed you all by itself. Think about that, Krystle.

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