think on this.

health care stories from the united states

ezra says: A few weeks ago, Barack Obama’s Organizing for America put out a call for health-care stories from its members. Thousands flooded in. Now they’re online. This one, from Tristan, is particularly brutal:

I had health insurance through my employer after I graduated from college. I was having problems with my stomach, I vomited blood at least once a week. I went to a doctor to get checked out, but was told my insurance did not cover my treatment unless I had a primary care physician approve me for specialized stomach treatment. I tried to find a primary care physician, but the earliest available appointment for any PCP in my town was 8 months away. I never got the appointment, I never got the treatment (remember, I just wanted to be checked out).

I currently live in Japan and am eligible for the National Health Insurance plan here. It costs me approximately $100 a year. I went to get my stomach checked out, and learned that I have Barret’s Esophagus. Though the doctors cannot be sure, there is a chance that if I had been consulted on things I could do myself (diet changes) or given some sort of acid-reducing medicine then my stomach problems could have been controlled before they caused Barret’s Esophagus. Now, I have to live with the understanding that I have one of the leading symptoms for esophageal cancer (10% per patient-year or greater), one of the most deadly cancers known. I’m 27, and now my wife and I are questioning if we should have kids soon. I can’t help but think, “am I going to live to see my kids grow…” I love my home country, but my anger towards what its health care system has done to me is sometimes beyond control.