How the American Healthcare System Stole Christmas

It’s the most wonderful time of the year — but not for everyone. For the millions of Americans crippled under the weight of outrageous medical bills or dealing with conditions they can’t afford to treat, it can be the most stressful and depressing.

I realize this post might come off sounding a bit “woe is me,” and for that, I apologize in advance. However, sharing personal experiences is a powerful way to raise awareness and make change. Here’s how the American healthcare system steals the holidays from chronically ill people — especially amid the pandemic.

Awaiting the Kick Under the Mistletoe

For the third year in a row, I’m spending the holidays in imminent fear of homelessness. My poverty didn’t arise because I didn’t work hard. I tried everything I could to bootstrap over the years, working multiple jobs, even earning an advanced degree.

My long day’s journey into night began when I became sick with mysterious, seemingly unrelated symptoms. I had severe gastrointestinal problems and chronic pain coupled with migraines that sometimes literally knocked me unconscious. The combination of ever-mounting medical bills with frequent job loss due to absenteeism burned through my savings first, then my credit cards, then my meager retirement accounts.

For well over a decade, I battled my disorder, coupled with downright gaslighting about my experiences. I was offered antidepressants aplenty but relatively little help for the symptoms that were impeding my ability to work. By the time my doctors realized how genuinely jacked up I was inside, I needed those happy pills to cope with being told “It’s all in your head,” and “you’re just seeking attention,” when I was spending 20 hours out of each 24 either in bed or on the toilet.

Frustrated, I continued seeking help while healing independently as best I could. I threw myself into the study of holistic medicine, turning back to my yoga practice and advancing my knowledge of herbalism.

My lowest point came when an unpaid sewer bill my ex-husband failed to mention nearly got me evicted. That was three holidays ago. I was already in the virtual sex trade and graduated to full-blown prostitution to keep a roof over my head.

Despite going to extremes to save my housing, I was nevertheless screwed when my former landlord sold my old rental. It was the second time I’d faced such circumstances. Once again, I did what I had to do, abandoning my dignity and risking my health to secure alternative lodging.

Not two months after moving into the studio I managed to scrap my way into, the owners of the building listed it for sale. I knew the bomb would eventually drop, and spent last holiday season sweating bullets. I got the save last time for one more year. However, it’s now under new ownership, and when this lease term ends, my rent doubles. And I find myself on the street.

Happy holidays.

The Disproportionate Healthcare Tax Sick People Pay

To use a little legal jargon, the lack of a universal system of healthcare — or even so much as the public option promised and again abandoned by the Democrats — might not have been the actual cause of my pending homelessness. It is, however, the proximate. But for the fact that I spent the last decade and a half of my life in a desperate scramble to figure out what was wrong with my body and fix it, I would have sufficient means to secure alternative housing. Heck, I would probably own a home.

The average American pays nearly $11,000 every single year for healthcare. Despite the high price tag, we have decidedly worse outcomes. We have the highest maternal mortality rate compared to ten other developed nations and ranks 33 out of 36 in infant death rate.

The pandemic brings the American healthcare system’s failures into stark relief. We had nearly double the Covid death rate of the next-closest peer nation in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study. Despite free vaccines, the country still has a significant percentage of people who refuse to get a jab or even wear a mask.

Why? A huge part of the problem is lack of familiarity with the healthcare system. Nearly half of Americans admit to skipping the doctor when they’re sick. If you don’t have a primary care physician whom you trust, where do you get your information? In today’s connected world, the answer is generally the internet.

Public figures can urge their followers to get vaccinated, but there’s no substitute for a doctor you trust when it comes to asking questions about your body. Plus, some people do have adverse reactions — it’s rare, but it happens. It may seem logical to most people to play the odds, knowing the chances of severe illness from Covid far outweigh those of an allergic nightmare. However, it becomes tougher to make that judgment call when you are the one left footing the bill if something goes awry.

For people with chronic illnesses, their conditions often rob them of a chance at the American dream. It doesn’t take a degree in advanced calculus to know that an extra $11,000 a year over the past decade and a half would have gone a long way toward letting me purchase a little home of my own. Even if my taxes increased $5,000 a year under a Medicare-for-All style plan, I’d still bank an extra six grand a year. That alone would give me first and last month’s rent plus deposit on something else.

The truly sad thing is, I am far from alone in my plight. I know people who are already sleeping rough when it became impossible to pay for a home and healthcare both. Several others are losing their current leases because of rising rents and the never-ending Monopoly game that those with capital play, with those of us who do not as their unwilling pawns. Many of my friends with chronic illnesses are also in tight places, crushed between ever-rising healthcare and housing costs.

Consider the following:

• The cost of healthcare has risen 31-fold since 1970.
• The same house that would cost you $65,600 in 1970 when adjusted for inflation would set you back nearly $200,000 today.
• Meanwhile, wages for the bottom 90% grew by a dismal 15%.

It isn’t challenging to see how many American workers fall further behind year after year. Some attempt to cut corners by going without healthcare — a massive problem amid a pandemic.

Those with chronic illnesses don’t have that dubious luxury. For many, it comes down to a choice between a roof over their heads or paying for needed care.

How is this allowed to continue in the richest nation on earth? Why do we tolerate a healthcare system that strips away the American dream from so many? Consider this: over 40% of cancer patients lose their life’s savings within the first two years of treatment. It took me a little longer to lose everything, but lose it, I did. Now I find myself on the cusp of 50, having no idea where I’m going to live in a few months.

It’s a bit of an understatement to say I’m not feeling the holiday cheer this year.

How the American Healthcare System Stole Christmas

I apologize if this article sounds like a giant bellyache. I get it that we all have our crosses to bear in life. Believe me, after being ill as long as I have, I’ve met many beautiful people in far more dire circumstances than mine, all because they committed the crime of getting sick in the one nation with anywhere near our GDP that doesn’t guarantee healthcare as a right to all citizens. My situation sucks, but it could — and has been — worse.

However, raising awareness matters. Legislators love to look at facts and figures, and the health insurance lobby plies them with no end of reasons why Medicare for All couldn’t work in the U.S. — despite the fact that something like it operates perfectly fine in every other industrialized nation on the planet.

They should also look at the human side of the story.

They should know that their constituents are losing everything, not because they did anything wrong, but for the crime of getting sick.

They should stop to think about what it’s like to spend the holidays in tears, worrying about losing your home — again. They should have an iota of empathy for all the sick people shuddering in terror, wondering if they can make it on the streets with their condition. They should show compassion towards those already there through no fault of their own, just an unfortunate accident or defective genes.

They should reflect on how Americans with chronic illnesses have to pay an unjust additional healthcare tax every year of their existence. They should consider more than the billions the very Congressional Budget Office says Medicare for All would save. They should contemplate the faces of their constituents who would finally have a shot at achieving financial security when unburdened by costs no one in any other industrialized nation has to shoulder alone.

They should know the way medical debt affects every aspect of their constituents’ lives. It isn’t just an unpaid bill — it’s what that debt prevents them from doing, like buying a home and getting off the rental roller coaster.

The best holiday gift many Americans could receive this year — especially amid a pandemic — would be comprehensive healthcare reform.

Sadly, the reality for many of them will be an empty cardboard box under the nonexistent tree.