Editor’s note: This commentary is by Walter Carpenter, of Montpelier, who works in Vermont’s tourist business and is a health care activist.
[R]oughly a month ago, Rep. Brian Cina, P/D-Burlington, a member of the House Health Committee, introduced H.129 into his committee. H.129 is novel bill, the first of its kind in the nation, in that it would actually do something for Vermonters that the U.S. has so far lacked the moral and political courage to do for its citizens. H.129 would make access to primary care universal for all Vermonters.
I had the importance of this demonstrated to me in a routine physical last week. Luckily, I am fortunate enough to “qualify” for Medicaid. If I had been on private insurance through the exchanges (neither of my employers offers health insurance), with its crazy high costs, my primary care doctor and I would not have discovered how my cholesterol levels are now abnormally high and are putting me in the danger zone. The doctor was as mystified as I was since I do not smoke, don’t drink, am an avid cyclist, kayaker, skier, and work a physically demanding job and generally engage in what opponents to universal care like to call “a healthy lifestyle.” The doctor attributed this alarming condition to genetics. My late father had this problem too.
I almost could not even make this appointment. In early February, Vermont Health Connect duly notified me that it was time to “renew” my health insurance. Of all the world’s advanced democracies, the U.S. is the only one where you have to undergo the humiliating process of having to renew your insurance. I hesitate to call the U.S. an advanced democracy, or even a democracy for that matter, because of this reason, one among so many others.
This process is like a game. The system wants your money. They get it through gouging us with high co-pays, deductibles, and premiums for little in return. The system wants customers that it deems can pay their prices, based upon the measurement of your income. They call this “income eligibility.” Some years ago, I overheard one Vermont state legislator lament about this in an off-hand comment how “the state’s job [every state, not just Vermont] is to funnel customers into Blue Cross.”
At first I thought I had made it. After a lengthy wait on hold, my call brought me to a woman in Virginia who would determine my status. She worked for the private company contracted by VHC to do this. She was pleasant, had trouble pronouncing Montpelier, the city I live in, and also had problems with the computer system that we taxpayers shelled out millions for at the rollout of the atrocious Affordable Care Act. We went through the questions and I wondered how much the taxpayer was paying this company annually to determine our health care fate on VHC.
My nerves were on a knife’s edge, hoping that I would qualify once again. Would I have to rearrange everything because my situation was in what the notices from the VHC phrased as “change of circumstance?” At last she said those magical words in her Southern accent that I qualified. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and figured I was OK for another 365 days. But I had forgotten the game. Another notice arrived from VHC announcing that I would lose my insurance if I did not renew by their termination date.
I was dumbfounded. Hadn’t I already done this? They had no record of it. From having to fight insurance companies before, I understood this move. They want to wear you down. The system held the upper hand in our game and they knew it. The system still wanted my money. Our interactions developed into something resembling the battle of Gettysburg and I realized that I needed reinforcements. I sought the help of Vermont Legal Aid, the health care advocate.
Without their assistance I would have been one of the thousands of uninsured or underinsured Vermonters. The Legal Aid advocate assigned to my case really did advocate on my behalf and, without her gracious and hard work, this recent discovery inside my body would have gone undetected and untreated to possibly become fatal down the road.
Cina’s bill, co-sponsored by 48 other legislators, would ensure that no Vermonter needed to “renew” at least their primary care. With H.129, no Vermonter would need a third party to advocate for them and their health care. While we always talk about costs, there can be no price tag put on saving lives — our lives.