Insurance Envy and Other Melancholy

I am not by nature a person who covets, or who spends a lot of time envying the fortunes of others. But lately, I admit, I have had insurance envy. And I look back to the days when I was a technical writer, an educational non-profit worker, an English professor, even a Starbuck's barista, and think, "Oh, I wish . . ." Even my childhood was privileged in that way--because my father was a doctor, I rarely even had to pay to see one, which is sort of like an insurance in itself.

Last fall, my husband was laid-off, and lost his insurance. Then we found out that I was pregnant, and I had certainly not planned on becoming pregnant until--that's right--he had a job again and could get insurance and could get me on that insurance. In my four-odd years as a massage therapist, the only time I have had medical insurance was the first full year I worked over 26 hours per week at a Massage Envy. My pay was nowhere near what it is now, mind, but that medical insurance was a definite benefit, something that we in this field all keenly recognize. I have never known a massage therapist yet who had medical insurance on her own behalf who did not work for a large corporation. I believe that there are probably a few massage therapists working for medical clinics, etc., who are lucky enough to have this coverage provided/available, but I have certainly never met one. In fact, most of the therapists I have met who have coverage, have it through a spouse or for the younger ones, a parent.

When I found out I was pregnant, the scramble began to find some sort of financial help, and frankly, I have never been so humiliated or frustrated. I swallowed my pride, and applied for DSHS. "No," they said, "Your family makes too much money. We might help you, though, in the event you spend more than $20,000." Ooh, that really helps, thanks. Once DSHS rejects you, you can apply for Basic Health, or you could if that was even available right now. Instead, I was lucky enough to get state insurance called Community Health Plan of Washington, for which I pay $186 per month. In return, I get . . . well, not a lot. See, it doesn't pay for things like sequential screening (two blood-draws, two ultrasounds), which a 41-year-old woman really needs, and which so far has cost more than $3500. Oh, and it has a $5000 deductible for what it does cover, based on the beginning date of the insurance and the birth of my baby. If my baby is born within 6 months of my insurance start-date, then the deductible is $5000. But if my baby is born 6 months or more after my insurance start-date, the deductible drops to $500. Of course, since I was almost 6 weeks pregnant when I realized that fact, and I had to apply and get rejected for DSHS first, then apply for Community Health Plan, and get accepted for that . . . well, it is unlikely she will make the 6 month cut-off. In fact, to add insult to injury, she will most likely miss it by about 1-2 weeks. After the $5000 deductible is met, I still have to pay 30% of remaining costs. The birth clinic wants it's 30% now ($1300), just in case; so heart-warming.

I love my baby; I don't blame her or begrudge her this ordeal. But sometimes I get so tired of working so hard to make the world a better place, a less painful place when sometimes the world seems to care so little about me. I traded the benefits of the corporate world for a more purposeful, healing existence. And yet what benefits those were: days to be sick, and yet paid; days to get snowed-in, and get paid; medical insurance to help insure that one sweet little baby doesn't financially cripple a whole family.

Sometimes I wonder why I, why any of us, put up with this. Many of us are highly educated, most of us are skilled and hard-working. Most of us are exhausted from working so hard that we find it almost impossible to get political, and none of us can truly afford this area; when I told my father in Arkansas--the man who was a successful OBGYN for over 30 years--what my prenatal costs were here, he thought I was kidding him. "That's highway robbery," he said. And it is. And how ironic, by the way, that so many people working as medical professionals cannot acquire affordable medical insurance on their own behalf that pays for more than accidental decapitation? That last part is a joke; it just isn't very funny.