I've been intrigued and immensely blessed by the feedback to our family's T1D (type 1 diabetes) story earlier this week. Even in the horrible that is our normal, God is good. One specific blessing I'll have to write about for you after Easter.
Until then, here's a few of the reader comments:
No one in America should have to write this story. We will fight until insulin is for all, to all. #insulin4all
She nails it-people.
My lovely friend Delightstruck Jen shares a story that’s all too common: where you work and how much you make determines the quality of healthcare in your life. In the United States. IN 2019.
Why have we blindly accepted that this is the America we must live in? Delightstruck Jen and her family deserve better. We all deserve better. #insulin4all
Having an insulin manufacturer in our own backyard, I'm even more disgusted by the greed that is inherent in the price gouging. And it's not just the companies...it's the shareholders demanding the returns...this country's healthcare is teetering. How much longer until it topples?
Sadly profit comes over good these days!
I don’t understand insulin, a clear and proven necessity, being something to make money off of - Oy what a difficult, difficult situation.
Girl, I feel you. And nearly everyone I know does too!! It’s just ridiculous this is the state of our nation. We’ve made more than one major life decision based on healthcare options.
Shareholders should demand returns. It’s up to the companies to execute ethically to obtain them.
A lot of people in Indiana don't understand that this is yet another reason teachers and other school employees are fed up. It's not just the lack of raises. It's the fact more school districts have been forced into offering such crappy insurance plans that employees are losing money. Salaries aren't going up, but health insurance costs are. People used to brag how that was one perk of being a teacher - you wouldn't get rich, but you had good benefits and guaranteed retirement income. (And that was an attractive proposition when I first started. It drew a lot of smart college grads into the profession.) At the school I taught the longest, it cost me $1 per year to be on the single insurance plan. One dollar. Nowadays, newer teachers in Indiana gasp when you tell them things like that. By the time I left the state, my insurance at my then-district had risen so high that I was actually losing money from year to year because my step increases on the salary scale weren't enough to make up for the increase in what I was paying to insure only myself.
Wow...brought tears to my eyes. Such a shame.
We worry every. single. day.
When Delightstruck Jen first told me about her family's healthcare struggles over coffee a few weeks back, I was aghast. It was infuriating enough to know that there are people without insurance coverage facing monumental challenges. However, I could not comprehend how a teacher in one of the wealthiest communities in our state is quite literally trading his paycheck for his life. You do not have to look hard to find stories about people in similar circumstances. Just this week, an important disability rights advocate lost her life because the insurance company denied her doctor's request for medication to heal her. Remember when representatives tried to scare us about "death panels" when the ACA was first introduced? Well, my friends, those death panels have long been in existence. Please write to your representatives and demand that they stand up against insurance companies and drug manufacturers who are killing Americans every single day. No one deserves to be a bottom line statistic.
This is heartbreaking but wow to have an advocate like his wife!!! Go girl and don’t back down. I’m sorry it’s even a fight that has to be fought.
Delightstruck Jen's account of the challenges of managing the current crazy, (pardon my French) merde-show of health care makes my heart hurt. I don’t know what the answer is, but for Jen and her family, we need a good answer YESTERDAY. For #T1D and every other chronic illness ... now.
There has to be a better way! We must demand better for our brothers and sisters.
The high price of healthcare. Not only does this hold back so many of my friends and loved ones from chasing their dreams or taking a job that's so much better for them, but it's literally allowing my friends to be in debt to their employers (looking at you unnamed Hamilton County school system -- but they aren't the only ones) when school is canceled for snow days, winter break and more. And even worse, my friends have to choose their medication and care plan based on how much money they have instead of what their doctor tells them is the best course. Delightstruck Jen is breaking down what it's like to try to survive with Type 1 Diabetes in America...and by survive, I mean pay for your NEEDED medication.
This holds true for most any medical issues. Going to the ER a year ago cost us 3k. So to even go for an emergency has to be thought about. Is it worth it? Or can we make it until we can go into the office and only pay $100 for the visit instead. It’s really heart wrenching to hear older folks at the pharmacy talking about how they can’t even afford their medications with Medicare.
Insurance has been a huge stresser for our family as well with a cardiac kiddo. Feel for you, Delightstruck Jen! Thanks for writing this! Prayers!
My SIL has had similar issues with her anti-rejection meds. She is a kidney transplant patient. She took three different meds to keep her body from rejecting the kidney she got back in 1985. Had been on the for years....until the new health care reform. Since then, she has had to stop taking one of them (the insurance company decided she didn't need it), and has struggled greatly with costs of the other two. She and her husband are on disability in their late 50's and 60's. They have had to take a mortgage out on their house twice. A house that had been completely paid off! Your article hit the nail on the head. It is horrible how the middle class has been squeezed (scammed?). It is not affordable healthcare.
Amen. I've had T1D for 52 years. I'm the modern world, diabetes is a profit generator, not a disease.
- Jen
Life with God is not immunity from difficulties but peace within difficulties.
- C.S. Lewis
- C.S. Lewis
Until then, here's a few of the reader comments:
No one in America should have to write this story. We will fight until insulin is for all, to all. #insulin4all
She nails it-people.
My lovely friend Delightstruck Jen shares a story that’s all too common: where you work and how much you make determines the quality of healthcare in your life. In the United States. IN 2019.
Why have we blindly accepted that this is the America we must live in? Delightstruck Jen and her family deserve better. We all deserve better. #insulin4all
Having an insulin manufacturer in our own backyard, I'm even more disgusted by the greed that is inherent in the price gouging. And it's not just the companies...it's the shareholders demanding the returns...this country's healthcare is teetering. How much longer until it topples?
Sadly profit comes over good these days!
I don’t understand insulin, a clear and proven necessity, being something to make money off of - Oy what a difficult, difficult situation.
Girl, I feel you. And nearly everyone I know does too!! It’s just ridiculous this is the state of our nation. We’ve made more than one major life decision based on healthcare options.
Shareholders should demand returns. It’s up to the companies to execute ethically to obtain them.
A lot of people in Indiana don't understand that this is yet another reason teachers and other school employees are fed up. It's not just the lack of raises. It's the fact more school districts have been forced into offering such crappy insurance plans that employees are losing money. Salaries aren't going up, but health insurance costs are. People used to brag how that was one perk of being a teacher - you wouldn't get rich, but you had good benefits and guaranteed retirement income. (And that was an attractive proposition when I first started. It drew a lot of smart college grads into the profession.) At the school I taught the longest, it cost me $1 per year to be on the single insurance plan. One dollar. Nowadays, newer teachers in Indiana gasp when you tell them things like that. By the time I left the state, my insurance at my then-district had risen so high that I was actually losing money from year to year because my step increases on the salary scale weren't enough to make up for the increase in what I was paying to insure only myself.
Wow...brought tears to my eyes. Such a shame.
We worry every. single. day.
When Delightstruck Jen first told me about her family's healthcare struggles over coffee a few weeks back, I was aghast. It was infuriating enough to know that there are people without insurance coverage facing monumental challenges. However, I could not comprehend how a teacher in one of the wealthiest communities in our state is quite literally trading his paycheck for his life. You do not have to look hard to find stories about people in similar circumstances. Just this week, an important disability rights advocate lost her life because the insurance company denied her doctor's request for medication to heal her. Remember when representatives tried to scare us about "death panels" when the ACA was first introduced? Well, my friends, those death panels have long been in existence. Please write to your representatives and demand that they stand up against insurance companies and drug manufacturers who are killing Americans every single day. No one deserves to be a bottom line statistic.
This is heartbreaking but wow to have an advocate like his wife!!! Go girl and don’t back down. I’m sorry it’s even a fight that has to be fought.
Delightstruck Jen's account of the challenges of managing the current crazy, (pardon my French) merde-show of health care makes my heart hurt. I don’t know what the answer is, but for Jen and her family, we need a good answer YESTERDAY. For #T1D and every other chronic illness ... now.
There has to be a better way! We must demand better for our brothers and sisters.
The high price of healthcare. Not only does this hold back so many of my friends and loved ones from chasing their dreams or taking a job that's so much better for them, but it's literally allowing my friends to be in debt to their employers (looking at you unnamed Hamilton County school system -- but they aren't the only ones) when school is canceled for snow days, winter break and more. And even worse, my friends have to choose their medication and care plan based on how much money they have instead of what their doctor tells them is the best course. Delightstruck Jen is breaking down what it's like to try to survive with Type 1 Diabetes in America...and by survive, I mean pay for your NEEDED medication.
This holds true for most any medical issues. Going to the ER a year ago cost us 3k. So to even go for an emergency has to be thought about. Is it worth it? Or can we make it until we can go into the office and only pay $100 for the visit instead. It’s really heart wrenching to hear older folks at the pharmacy talking about how they can’t even afford their medications with Medicare.
Insurance has been a huge stresser for our family as well with a cardiac kiddo. Feel for you, Delightstruck Jen! Thanks for writing this! Prayers!
My SIL has had similar issues with her anti-rejection meds. She is a kidney transplant patient. She took three different meds to keep her body from rejecting the kidney she got back in 1985. Had been on the for years....until the new health care reform. Since then, she has had to stop taking one of them (the insurance company decided she didn't need it), and has struggled greatly with costs of the other two. She and her husband are on disability in their late 50's and 60's. They have had to take a mortgage out on their house twice. A house that had been completely paid off! Your article hit the nail on the head. It is horrible how the middle class has been squeezed (scammed?). It is not affordable healthcare.
Amen. I've had T1D for 52 years. I'm the modern world, diabetes is a profit generator, not a disease.
- Jen
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