President Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I know you are busy with your reelection campaign, but I felt the need to write you this very important letter. In 2001, I became part of the 47% that Gov. Romney was talking about at that fund raiser in Florida. I’m sick. Very sick. I recently had open-heart surgery and am currently on the waiting list for a kidney transplant as mine have shut down.I wasn’t always sick. I married my wonderful wife twelve years ago, and it looked like we had a pretty bright future ahead of us. We both found good jobs and were making decent money. I got laid off but we were ok because, even though there was no work to be found, my wife still had a job and still had insurance. I had trouble breathing when I was lying down. It felt like I was drowning. Shortly after the layoff, my wife convinced me that it was more than a cold or flu, and we went to an urgent care facility. They sent me directly to the hospital where I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and chronic renal insufficiency.
With my kidneys shot and my heart enlarged from high blood pressure, I was in serious danger of dying. They got my blood pressure under control, but the damage to the heart and kidneys had been done and it was permanent. I suddenly started costing my wife’s company (they were self-insured) a lot of money. Eventually she was “reorganized” out of her job, and I fear that this happened because I got sick.
With both of us out of work, money was tight. My wife’s severance and our unemployment benefits eventually ran out. So did the COBRA, which was too expensive for us to continue. That’s when my one of my specialists refused to continue seeing me. Luckily, we found a low-income medical clinic in the next county over to treat me.
We decided that since I was incapable of work, I would apply for Social Security Disability. The process to get a disability check was a very long and frustrating journey that lasted more than two years. None of the disability law specialists we contacted would agree to help us with our claim because of my young age, so after our appeals my wife and I eventually ended up in front of an administrative law judge by ourselves. None of my conditions (which by this time also included sleep apnea, depression, morbid obesity, arthritis, and degenerative disks in my back) by itself was deemed severe enough to warrant disability. However, the judge determined that the whole of my symptoms and limitations did warrant it.
Eventually my kidneys failed completely and I had to go on dialysis in December 2011. I dialyze at home, and without Medicare it would cost $2012 per day. So far this year, through August 31, my total medical bills have come to around $570,000. This figure does not include expensive travel to Salt Lake City for some of my medical treatments (there isn’t a transplant center in Idaho), special bariatric vitamins, dental cleanings & treatments required for the transplant program, dialysis room supplies, etc. I don’t know of many people, except people like Gov. Romney and his friends, who can afford to spend over half a million dollars on only 8 months’ worth of medical bills.
I have medical appointments three, four, and sometimes even five days each week. My wife schedules these appointments, drives me to appointments, helps with my dialysis, and deals with the billing and pre-approvals for Medicare and Medicaid. She makes sure I have enough of each medication on hand, prepares my pill container every week, and even keeps a spreadsheet of each medication and its dosage that we bring to every appointment. When she went to the dentist for a painful broken tooth in June, the dentist was unable to treat her because her blood pressure was too high. She went to the clinic to treat the blood pressure so she could have the tooth worked on, and the doctor discovered that she had developed type 2 diabetes. As a result of the stress of caring for me and her father, my wife now has caregiver stress syndrome. We’re so lucky that the low-income clinic has been able to help her. Without this clinic, we would not be able to afford treatment for her and she would be facing scary complications of Diabetes like blindness, amputation, and kidney failure.
You are probably wondering why I am telling you this story. I recently read that Gov. Romney believes that people who don’t have health insurance don’t die. He said that best way to get treatment if you don’t have insurance is to go to the emergency room. What Gov. Romney is apparently unaware of is that the emergency room is very expensive and they will send you a bill. When you can’t pay the bill they will send collections after you. Those people, in my experience, are not very nice.
I’m also telling you this story because I am a big fan of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Had the PPACA been in effect years ago, I may have been able to go in for a regular checkup. They could have caught my high blood pressure before it did so much damage to my heart and kidneys, and I wouldn’t have been turned down for a pre-existing condition due to my heart murmur.
Gov. Romney said that as part of the 47% I just want to sit back, collect a check and let someone else take care of me. He could not be more wrong. Does he think I wanted to have my kidneys fail? Does he think I wanted to have open-heart surgery before I turned 40? Does he think I enjoy taking 8-10 different medications each day to survive? I’m writing this letter to tell you how flat out wrong he is. I do rely on government services now, and I am one of the “47%” who Governor Romney referred to. But I’m not a ‘taker’. Remaining on disability is not my life’s goal. My heart valve has been replaced and, once my kidney transplant has healed, I want to learn new skills and re-join the workforce so I can resume my position as a taxpayer.
Mr. President, this election is very important for many reasons. I know that I’m just one person among millions, but I write you this letter because I believe this election could determine how much longer I live. I believe if you win, PPACA is fully implemented and you are able to get a job training bill past the Tea Party, I’ll be back in the workforce and a contributing member of society in a few years. I am afraid that if Gov. Romney wins I’ll see my benefits slashed, I’ll never have a chance of getting job training to come off of disability and we’ll never move out of my father-in-law’s basement. I know that if he succeeds in repealing PPACA, my lifespan and the lifespan of my wife will be considerably shorter.
During my recent stint in cardiac rehab, I learned that there are people who are sick like me and, because their medications cost so much, they split the pills to make them last longer or they don’t take them every day. These vulnerable members of our society would fare even worse under a Romney administration.
Although I’m sick, I owe my life to Medicare and Medicaid. I hope that the PPACA is fully enacted so that other Americans can get the preventive care they need so they can avoid the expensive and painful treatments that I have endured. I hope the PPACA can also help people like my wife who will be able to access preventive care to stave off the development of conditions like type 2 diabetes that will affect her for the rest of her life.
Good luck sir, we are all counting on you.
Sincerely,
Christopher M. Ross
Eagle, Idaho
Note to readers: You can learn more about our multi-year struggle here.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
