Last week, Blue Cross/Blue Shield called my house. When I saw the caller ID, my stomach lurched.
I thought for sure they were calling to scold us. My family was in the middle of a health situation (which I won’t specify for privacy reasons), but which cost our health plan a bundle.
It turns out Blue Cross/Blue Shield wasn’t calling to reprimand us for visiting multiple doctors; they were calling to find out if we were OK. “My name is Emily,” said the woman on the phone. “Is there anything I can do to help? Do you need assistance making follow-up appointments?”
The kindness was so unexpected that I started crying into the phone. “I thought you were calling to say we owed money,” I told Emily, “or that our insurance claims were denied.”
“I get that all the time,” Emily said. “But I’m your case manager. I’m here to support you.” Before she hung up Emily gave me her number so that I could call her any time I wanted.
Every American deserves an Emily. Our default assumption shouldn’t be that insurance companies will kick us when we’re down.
It’s a horrible feeling to need insurance. Nobody wants to desperately see the doctor, or have climbing to the top of a wait list feel like submitting Mount Rainier. I don’t want to cost Blue Cross/Blue Shield money. If I could freeze my Health Savings Account card, I would.
Still, I recognize that I come from the privileged place of having wonderful insurance. Employer sponsored health care has covered me my entire life; as a child, public school teacher, and now as a wife. I’m lucky because without an employer health plan, I would probably be impossible to insure.
I have two cardiac surgeries at Stanford Hospital on my record. I eat healthy and exercise regularly, but through an unfair twist of fate, I have a crappy ticker.
As our nation’s leaders duke it out over what health care will look like in the future, I worry about people like me with pre-existing conditions, or young adults in their early 20s saddled with student loans who need help from their parents’ plans.
But I’m also listening attentively to both sides of the political divide. Some of my Trump-voting friends say that their insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act skyrocketed, and literally took money out of their monthly food budget. They view Obamacare as stealing food from their dinner table.
Many of my Clinton-voting friends are terrified of the changes to come and worry that without the ACA, they might go back to having no insurance at all. Something as simple as a birth control prescription could become a luxury.
Please, politicians, stop bickering. Be willing to compromise and hammer out a solution that makes most of us happy. American mothers are counting on you.
Jennifer Bardsley is author of the books “Genesis Girl” and “Damaged Goods.” Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, on Twitter @jennbardsley or on Facebook as The YA Gal.
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