Hard working Americans struggle without health care

Americans must make real change at the ballot box! Vote for health care for all.....

Health care shouldn't come down to the size of your wallet

At age 61, my dad is one of the roughly 6 million self-employed Americans without health insurance with no foreseeable light at the end of the hospital halls.

He has atrial fibrillation, or in layman’s terms, a bum heart. It can be mitigated, but it isn't cheap.

My uncle died recently of cancer. He was self-employed and uninsured at his diagnosis. They're just two of the legions who work hard to make ends meet and achieve success with little wiggle room in a health care system that isn't there for them when they need it.

That's not the American Dream.

Everything is an uphill battle. The cost of vital medications and hospital visits competes with bills, groceries and keeping the power on. Do you sell the house, the boat and the land — tangible equity for the future — or tough it out to inevitably end up back in the ER?

There are a lot of decision makers who use health care as a political chess piece. Meanwhile, they remain shamefully blind to the reality that the current set-up doesn't work for too many Americans. This isn't a game to be won for one party or another. It's not every man for himself. Lives are at stake.

The Legislature is bandying about ideas that would put cities on the hook if a felled tree takes down transmission power lines. They’re looking to get the whole state on Daylight Saving Time year-round and arguing over whether a statue of Walt Disney or Mary McLeod Bethune better represents Florida in the U.S. Capitol.

The U.S. government has shut down twice this year. It's only February.

But what we’re not hearing is substantive discussion on how to help people with the realest problem of all: their health.


The old adage remains: You don't need insurance until you need it. Not having a roof over your head is fine until it rains.

Canada, although not perfect, figured out how to do it decades ago. Most Europeans don’t bat an eye at hospital visits.

In the U.S., people make decisions about whether to even visit a doctor based on whether they’re able to pay for it. They, like my father, don’t take medications prescribed to them because they cost too much. The out-of-pocket expenditures for lifesaving treatments and specialists is exorbitant and out of reach for most working people.

So they go without.

There is a move afoot in the Florida Legislature to adopt a Medicare-for-all system that would extend health care and prescription drug coverage as a right, not a privilege linked to the size of your wallet.

My dad’s lack of insurance came up in the car ride on the way to Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare last week. He was hesitant to even go, but without a primary care doctor, it was the only option with the immediacy that comes with heart palpitations.

Nurses asked about insurance. Every doctor asked about it when discussing treatment options. They reassured us they would do everything they could regardless.

It was a dark subject at time when relief was the only thing on everyone’s mind. It was hard not to turn sour and vitriolic about the health care system.

Two years ago, 45 percent of uninsured adults said they didn't seek coverage because the cost was too high, according to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

For some, figuring out how to stretch finances to pay for a serious medical treatment is the cloth nightmares are cut from.

I'm healthy and insured. Not everyone has that comfort, even my own father. I wish I could just hand mine off. I'd relinquish it to someone in dire need in a fraction of a second.

We can do better. As an educated society, don't tune it out. 

Make real changes at the ballot box.

Karl Etters can be reached at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.