We've been able, through careful scrutiny of food labels and asking questions of waiters at restaurants, to keep Charlotte's sesame allergy under control. However, it's not always in our control, and we know there will be a time in the future when she'll be at a friend's house or at school and ingest sesame. Case in point. When I was in Dallas, Chris received a call from daycare that there had been an incident. Another one of the toddlers had brought in a cracker (and you know how much Charlotte is obsessed with crackers) that was covered in sesame seeds. Charlotte, being the cracker-lover that she is, tried to grab the cracker from the other boy. The teachers were able to pry the cracker out of her hands before she ate it, but not before she touched it. She then rubbed her hands on her eyes and they started to turn red and swell, a little. The teachers gave her Benadryl, and Chris came right over to pick her up. I was really mad to hear this a few hours later and gave a stern scolding to the school the following Monday (as in, maybe you need to tell the other families not to bring in outside food?!). But I say all this to remind myself that as much as Chris and I try to protect Charlotte, there will be more incidents in the future.
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Keeping that in mind, I sent a letter to the editor of the Sacramento Bee yesterday about the six month anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the health reform bill. It hasn't been published (yet), but here's the gist:
Today marks the six month anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which means that children can no longer be denied health insurance due to a pre-existing condition. Sadly, my 15 month old baby has joined those ranks. We discovered that our daughter, through no fault of her own, has a life threatening food allergy, which caused a trip in an ambulance to the ER. We're blessed to have good insurance, but now we are heartened to know that if we were to ever lose our insurance, we would be able to purchase insurance for our baby with her allergy covered. And her condition is nowhere near as serious as hundreds of thousands of children out there whose parents cannot purchase insurance on the individual market. It upsets me to no end that there are legislators out there, including my own congressman, who wants to repeal this law, which has the potential to help so many people, like my own small family. Shame on him.
What today also marks? Children can stay on their parents' insurance until age 26, regardless of whether or not they're full-time students. When I graduated from college, I was allowed to stay on my mom's insurance because I was still going to graduate school, but I knew many friends who lost their insurance the day they graduated. Many chose internships or other entry-level positions that either didn't provide insurance or was made too cost-prohibitive. Today, young adults don't have to worry. They can take that internship, they can study abroad, all without the fear of getting in an accident and not being able to pay the hospital bills. Should this be repealed?
Today, new plans must offer preventive services free of charge. Mammograms are covered 100% without a co-pay, immunizations are free, well-child visits no longer require parents to pay money out-of pocket. Should we take this provision away?
Lifetime and annual limits are banned. This means that people with serious illnesses don't have to worry about whether they're going to hit that lifetime cap of coverage, at which time they're on the hook for every dime of coverage. There are people who have to change jobs constantly because of chronic illnesses because they hit this cap. One of my colleagues has no immune system and must receive a blood transfusion every three weeks to fend off infection. This provision directly benefits her. Should this be replaced?
Finally, today marks the day that insurance companies can't rescind your coverage just because, you (gasp) actually use your insurance. I have heard countless stories of people getting cancer, only to have an insurance company drop them from coverage (despite paying hundreds of dollars in premiums) when they try to get care.
Many more important changes roll out in the next few years, including prohibiting the denial of care based on pre-existing conditions for all age groups in 2014.
And please don't start yelling to me about the individual mandate. I don't want to hear it. The individual mandate is what will make the insurance reforms work. It will ensure that the risk is spread around; otherwise, it will all fall apart. You can't ban pre-existing conditions without making sure that everyone has insurance, or people will wait until they're sick or in a car accident to buy insurance. And to ensure that people enroll, you have to make it affordable by providing subsidies and hardship exemptions. It's a fragile three-legged stool, and I'm determined to make sure that it doesn't fall apart.
It's my job to be passionate about this. It's my job to understand and defend this law, which expands coverage to millions, many of whom are the patients our clinics care for each and every day. And it's my job to be an advocate for Charlotte, who has been to the ER more times in her short life than I think I have in my entire life. It makes me breathe a little easier to know that today (and hopefully forever), she'll have access to insurance. And I hope that the readers here (however few there are) will remember that the face of health insurance reform isn't just some poor person who isn't taking responsibility for his or her health, it's my daughter, my baby. And it could be yours too.
