Are you about to lose your health insurance?
Today, those of us in NY who rely on state health insurance were sent a text saying we are about to lose our coverage. Did you get a text from your state, too? What did it say?
Funny story! Back in 2021, I relied on an employee-sponsored health insurance, which happened to be United. Then, as many of you who’ve been reading these missives know, I went deaf from Covid. And United refused to cover a simple operation, minutes before it was set to begin. (I’m still deaf without hearing aids, which United also refused to cover.) So, after consulting with my ENT, who told me Fidelis was actually better about paying out claims for necessary operations, medical services, and medical devices such as hearing aids, and I could get covered by Fidelis through state-sponsored health insurance, I decided to take a leap and go on ACA healthcare. Aka Obamacare. Aka the government-sponsored insurance I was told throughout my life, before it was even a gleam in our country’s eye, would be awful and socialist and would mean I’d wait forever for doctors appointments, so why would I ever submit to such a thing? Didn’t I care about my health and wellbeing? Wasn’t that my whole…schtick?
Turns out, the naysayers were all wrong. Woefully so. The ACA is wonderful! It has been a godsend to people like me, who earn our keep as freelancers or artists or solopreneuers or digital nomads or whatever new word or phrase you want to call those of us earning a living outside corporate structures, as well as to to the overall health of American citizens as a whole.
It’s definitely been a boon to my aging body. Fidelis, as promised, paid for my ear surgery. It paid to have my bones tested for osteoporosis. It paid for all my visits with a urologist to finally solve the heretofore unsolvable issue of recurring UTIs for good. And it has paid, minus a reasonable copay, for visits with all the new doctors I’ve had to find and employ for each of my various middle-aged lady ailments. Each of these doctors, who all take Fidelis, have been, to a person, empathic, responsive, and brilliant in their respective fields. (Shout out to Dr. Alexa Meyer, Dr. Mary Hanna, Dr. Babak Sadoughi, Dr. Jiali Fang, Dr. Kristin Yancey, and Dr. Lauren Wong.)
But now, thanks to Trump and his Big Beautiful Big Bad Betrayal bill, the ACA, on which I and so many Americans rely, is on the chopping block. Which means 13.7 million Americans are about to lose their health insurance, many of whom voted for Trump. Will I be part of that 13.7 million? Will you? Who knows? It’s all still a chaotic mystery for now.
What isn’t a mystery is the horror embedded in the hard data. According to a report by the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, in conjunction with the Yale School of Public Health, an extra 51,000 Americans will die, per year, of preventable deaths if this bill goes into effect. Let’s think about that number for a moment: 2911 people died in the terrorist attacks on 9/11. We can all agree—or at least we could all agree back then—that this is a horrific number of people to go to an early grave. But if the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” passes, we can expect 17.5 times that number of people who died on 9/11 to die—every year!—of unnecessary causes. That’s the equivalent of 17.5 terrorist attacks per year: men, women, children, fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, wives, husbands, wiped off the face of the earth so a few billionaires can get tax breaks. (And if you think this war our president unilaterally started, without asking Congress, after no one attended his Big Belligerent Birthday party is anything other than a smokescreen to keep us from focusing on the domestic horrors in this bill, I have a Strait of Hormuz to sell you.)
I’m curious enough to hear from those Americans who are on ACA insurance that I’m actually making this story free for everyone to read and opening up my comments section, god help us, to everyone as well: did you receive a recent text message from your state health insurance about losing your coverage, too? If so, what did it say? Are you about to lose your ACA insurance, too?
Finally, as always, I will ask those of you wondering, But what can I do about this?, to hop over to 5 calls and call your senators if the idea of losing the ACA and 51,000 American lives per year bothers you, too. Calling your representatives works. It matters. They tally these calls. And please leave your name and home address when you do. I just called mine, Gillibrand and Schumer, both of whom automatically popped up after I entered my location in 5 calls. It took two minutes! I left them my thoughts using the 5 calls script below. Feel free to call your senators and do the same. About any of the issues at risk from this bill.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go schedule a ton of doctors appointments before my insurance runs out.
My sister is 74, is severely learning disabled and has multiple physical disabilities. She lived with my parents until they both passed away and I have been responsible for her care since 1991. Here in Arizona, the state has an outstanding assisted living program for Medicaid or dual eligible (medicaid and medicare eligible).
She is thriving, has a social life, the staff are kind and caring individuals. All but $125 dollars of her Social Security goes to the facility and HUD chips in $125. To be clear, my sister despite her disabilities, worked almost 35 years (obviously most minimum wage), paid into Social Security, and has never needed financial assistance from the state until we were no longer able to physically care for her in our home.
As her POA, we are waiting to notice to see if this program continues. The HUD destruction in the bill is unclear and AZ is still in process of how to spread the losses across multiple programs.
I sent my GOP representative that if this program an official registered letter that since he voted for this bill, I will be dropping my sister off at his house and transferring responsibility to him. Of course, no answer!
Jane Fonda said the GOP is now firmly in a "documentary moment". History is recording every despicable hateful, death filled action our GOP has crafted and passed. Their children will be asking the question the German children of the 1950s were asking "What were you doing when Hitler was in power Mom, Dad?"
Thank you, as always, for your posts. I have called our shockingly useless New York State senators. I had ACA insurance for a decade and was incredibly grateful as a self-employed person. Like you, my experience was mostly positive. have graduated to Medicare, but I know the GOP is coming after this too. For any people out there who are about to qualify for Medicare, I urge you to purchase the AARP supplemental health insurance if you can afford it.