Amy Rabinoff isn’t dying, knock on wood.
As pre-existing conditions go, her cervical problems and irritable bowel syndrome may not play as well as cancer in the Sunday paper.
She’s one of the 32 million uninsured Americans whose eligibility for medical care hinges on the bill that Congress plans to vote on today. What’s remarkable about her “situation,” as she calls it, is that it’s so unremarkable.
“I guess I’ve become one of those people you read about with their stories about being left out in the cold,” says the unemployed meeting planner. “I’ve been telling my story and telling my story. Somebody out there should hear it.”
Rabinoff, who’s 40 and lives with her dog in Denver, did what she was supposed to do.
Each week, she put part of her paycheck in a retirement plan and part of it in savings. She worried so much about her brother going uninsured that she bought health coverage for his 43rd birthday. She was writing letters to the editor and e-mailing Congress in support of reform long before getting laid off last April. Private insurers iced her out, deeming her conditions to be too high-risk (i.e. expensive).
Her coverage lasted through January, when she stocked up on as many bottles she could of the medication she needs to treat her debilitating abdominal pain. The blue pills will run out in June, when she’ll have to pay $450 a month for refills out of her $2,000 monthly unemployment check or go without treatment instead.
Still unable to find a job, she can’t afford CoverColorado, the state-run program for uninsurable patients, without cashing out her retirement.
Any way you run the numbers, she’s in trouble.
What that’s like day to day is stressful to the point of distraction.
How it looks is a furled brow on her pretty face as she contemplates choosing between losing her IRA, her home or her health.
When it strikes is during Friday’s snowstorm when fear of getting hurt in a car accident kept her off the slushy streets.
Stress turns to anger whenever watching House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, on TV vowing to kill Obama care. Disappointment turned to bitterness after she wrote her congresswoman, Democrat Diana DeGette of Denver, about pre-existing conditions, only to get a form letter back about energy reform.
Rabinoff has stopped shooting off letters and e-mails. She lies to friends and tells them everything’s OK. She’s growing weary of having to step so vulnerably toward the day when the meds she needs finally run out.
“It’s 2010 in a country that’s supposed to be a superpower. And we haven’t found a way to make ourselves eligible to afford a doctor? Even countries that beat baby seals offer health care to people,” she says. “I’m not handling this very well. I can’t comprehend why this hasn’t already been fixed.”
Whatever happens in Washington today won’t change the fact that Rabinoff will still be uninsured tomorrow. Like all too many others, she’s studying the fine print trying to figure out how, if at all, she might benefit before reform would take full effect in 2014.
Nearly two months into life as one of the 32 million, she wonders how she woke up one day in her own country, her prospects defined by the condition of her cervix and bowels.
Some days she lets herself dream instead about another condition — that of simply being human and 40, with aches and pains and the chance again to take care of herself, just like the rest of us.
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
