Thanks Obama

My title is not sarcastic, and I didn't realize how thankful I was until the votes came in to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Am I saying it was a perfect system? Of course not. But now it's going away, and there is nothing going in to replace it. This directly affects my family, it impacts our future, and what kind of future we get to have.

Thanks to Obama, when Nathan and I were married in 2011, Nathan was able to remain on his stepfathers insurance. Our entire marriage, Nathan has been able to stay on good insurance, insurance that has effectively kept him alive. Insurance that severely reduced our burden when his Crohn's disease got worse, when he needed major emergency surgery, when he spent weeks in the hospital. It's no secret that we struggled financially in that time, that we barely scraped through when he was unable to work for nearly a full year. But when the medical bills came with scary numbers, like $53,000, our responsibility was reduced to closer to $2,000 or so.

Nathan is turning 26 anyway, so he would no longer be able to remain on that insurance, but this repeal brings a new issue. Insurance will now be allowed to discriminate based on a "Preexisting condition." Nathan has Primary Scholarosing Cholangitis, which is a rare disease that means his liver WILL fail. There is not an if, it is a when. We will live with and plan for this for the remainder of our lives, which let me just tell you, is a scary place to live. But now, will he even be able to get medical insurance? In May we had intended for him to get insurance through his work or to add him to my plan. Will the insurance companies accept him? Will they accept him and raise his rates so much that it will break our family?

Not having medical insurance for Nathan is not an option. As stated earlier, with him, it's not if something goes wrong, it's when. If we're unable to afford insurance and he needs surgery, those bills for $53,000 will no longer be reduced to a co-payment. They will be $53,000, which will end up in collections, destroying our credit, destroying our ability to buy a home, to provide the life we are willing to work to have for our son. We will become the family that sets up a GoFundMe account to survive.

I am afraid right now. I am afraid for what these politicians with their government funded insurance are deciding for my families future. And I am truly, fully grateful for the last 8 years where despite our medical trials, we at least did not have to worry about having insurance. Thank you Obama, for keeping my family alive.


Want to do something about it? Contact your local representatives:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?OrderBy=state 

Express any concern you have with removing the ACA without a replacement plan ready to be implemented.