One Family, Six Healthcare Plans

by Donna Schoenkopf

I had this dream last night.

I am in a huge room, like an auditorium. There are many, many round tables with many, many people sitting around them. There are hundreds of us. Up on the stage is my skin cancer doctor. He is sitting on a very grand chair, smiling and beneficent. He says we are all to come up to the stage. We get up out of our chairs and form one of those haphazard lines that happens when many people gather into some semblance of order. The procession moves slowly to the stage. The Good Doctor is now standing, as each person comes up to him.

When I get to him he holds my face in his hands and looks deeply and kindly into my face. And then he kisses me on the forehead, right where he has taken out the very long and deep skin cancer that has been so resistant to regular treatment for the past year. Radiance emanates from him and into me, into my wound, and, instantly, I am well.

I wake up.

This dream, as all dreams are, is a metaphor of what is happening in my life. The dream is a result of a year-long bout with a pesky patch of skin cancer on my forehead. I’d had these patches before. One removal had always done the trick, but this patch wouldn’t stay gone. Three times to the doctor. Three times getting needled and scraped. Three times it came back within weeks of treatment.

But because I am a retired teacher, a union member, an American in today’s America, I have magnificent health care in my older years. No thanks to conservative/libertarian thinking, I might add. No thanks to YOU guys! Seriously. In spite of huge criticism of President Obama by conservatives of all types—Tea Party members, Republicans, libertarians, neocons, independents (who just blow with the wind, mindlessly, so I include them because they become conservative every time the tide changes)—a law was passed during that brief, shining moment of a liberal, progressive Congress. But it was just barely a progressive Congress. The Blue Dog Democrats had to be bribed and, worse, they and their Republican friends stripped a lot of good progressive stuff out of the bill. Finally those Blue Dogs stood, shakily, with the Party and our President and managed to carve out a new, more humanitarian answer to the profit-oriented, inhuman, and draconian health care system that had been increasingly responsible for some of the worst health care in the world.

But I digress. This story is written to illustrate the patchwork quilt of health care that our country has today. To illustrate this I will describe six (6!) of them in my own immediate family.

First of all, me:

I have Medicare as my primary insurance.

I get Medicare because Lyndon Baines Johnson pushed it through Congress in 1965.

From Larry DeWitt’s essay, The Medicare Program as a Capstone to the Great Society-Recent Revelations in the LBJ White House Tapes, written in May, 2003.

At 2 p.m. on the afternoon of July 30, 1965 two planeloads of dignitaries departed Andrews Air Force Base in Washington for a flight to Kansas City, Missouri. In the lead plane, Air Force One, was President Lyndon Johnson and the first-rank of Washington officialdom. In the second plane were the second-tier dignitaries and the press. After arriving in Kansas City the group departed in a huge motorcade for the smaller town of Independence-a 20 minute drive from Kansas City. The group’s destination was the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, where Johnson planned to sign into law the bill creating the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

During his prepared remarks, Johnson stood at a podium with President Truman at his left side. Near the end of his prepared remarks President Johnson turned again to Truman and offered to enroll him in the Part B Medical Insurance program. Johnson told him, “They told me, President Truman, that if you wish to get the voluntary medical insurance you will have to sign this application form. And they asked me to sign as your witness. So you’re getting special treatment since cards won’t go out to the other folks until the end of this month.” Johnson then looked back over at Truman and said, “But we wanted you to know, and we wanted the whole world to know,” at this point Johnson leaned over towards Truman, sticking his long hound-dog face right in Truman’s, “who is the real daddy of Medicare.” Truman mumbled his appreciation. Johnson then signed up Harry Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary.

Mr. DeWitt’s essay goes on to quote poverty rates for the elderly—35. 2% in 1959; 24.6% in 1970; and 10.2% in 2000—and says that Social Security and Medicare are the reasons for the drop.

Thank you, Lyndon and Harry.

But let’s not forget Teddy Roosevelt for making health care one of the major planks of the Progressive Party in the presidential election of 1912. My life and many other lives are enriched, literally, by those three.

But I still wouldn’t be really above water if it weren’t for my union. The copay on doctor visits and charges above what Medicare allows or procedures that aren’t covered at all, are covered by my secondary insurance, a private corporation, Blue Cross/Blue Shield/Anthem (or whatever other corporate interest wants in). This secondary insurance was fought for by my fabulous union as a condition of my working for Los Angeles Unified School System.

So thank you, dear United Teachers of Los Angeles!

And now for the rest of the story of my family’s health coverage. I am using our family because it illustrates just about every form of health coverage there is in America.

Son Eric:

He works for the City of San Francisco. Need I say more? What governmental agency has more concern for people than the City of San Francisco?

And how great is his insurance? Among other things, such as having “Cadillac” insurance coverage, he is allowed six weeks of paternal leave. He is currently staying at home with his newborn son, Henry, and his five-year-old son, Jack, while his wife works. From her home office! Think of the savings to taxpayers because San Francisco is enlightened enough to see the value of this kind of coverage. Because my son is able to be with his family, the stress and strain on children and parents when both parents must return to work, right after a new baby is born, is ameliorated, making for healthier, happier children and parents. The family knits together better, too, in that intimate time, making for a more cohesive society. Win-win-win!

Daughter-in-law Casey, wife of Eric:

Works for a large public utility corporation. Has good insurance, but not like Eric’s. Is currently working out of her home office because the company recognizes the fact that people can work from home easily in this day and age, thanks to technology. The good economics of having a happy and secure worker is very real and the company recognizes this. She is able to walk out of her home office to be with Henry when he needs her for nursing or loving or talking to and then she hands her boy off to his daddy when she needs to get back to work. All in a few steps. Daddy takes baby on walks, picks up older son from school, keeps the household running, while mom takes care of business. Talk about taking the pressure off a mother and father at a very delicate time. Nice. It’s the way the world should be.

Daughter Rebecca:

Becca has no insurance. She is a freelance worker and can’t afford Cobra or anything else. She goes to Planned Parenthood when she needs gynecological medical care. They are a terrific organization. When she was laid off from her editor’s job at a newspaper, they gave her a card that covered her care 100%. But if it’s not gynecological, she has to use emergency rooms. She has paid for every single emergency visit she’s ever had, which has amounted to thousands of dollars. She worries that something might happen that would be beyond her ability to take care of. She is young and healthy, so the odds of really bad news regarding her health are long. But she does hold her breath now and then and keeps her fingers crossed.

Grandson Jimmy, Becca’s boy:

Jimmy is fifteen. His mom died when he was a year and a half old. Becca, his older half sister, became his legal guardian. Jimmy was born with a medical condition that requires ongoing attention, so the State of California sees to it that he gets it. His insurance has changed over time. When he became Becca’s ward she had trouble untangling a huge bureaucratic mess that resulted because she wasn’t his foster parent. Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was always dropping him from MediCal because of that loophole and Becca spent a lot of time trying to straighten things out. At long last a wonderful judge proclaimed to all parties involved that health care was not to be denied him. His health care was taken over by Blue Cross, which was quick and efficient in their responses. Then it was taken over by the Healthy Families program, which is great. But worries abound. Governor Jerry Brown, in trying to balance the budget in California, is about to cut this service back by eight percent.

Son John:

John doesn’t have a job that carries insurance for him, so his health program consists of staying healthy. Being twenty-eight, it’s not too difficult. He was covered under my insurance while he was a student and/or until he was twenty-six. Once, when he was no longer qualified to be carried under my insurance, he contracted pneumonia and his dad took him to the emergency room. I have a feeling that visit was never paid for. His dad has taken him to a doctor friend on the rare occasions John has fallen ill. The one thing John would like to have is dental coverage. Otherwise, he’s just making things work the best way he can.

One family, six aspects of health care in America.

Think we’ll ever have everybody covered by intelligently designed and humane health care? Just because we’re Americans?

I wish we could, just like in my dream, kiss it and make it well.

But I do know some things we can do to make it happen. Stick with the Democratic Party, give them money, join a union if you can, open your mouth and speak truth to power, and see the vision when you dream.

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