Faces of American Health Care, Part Two: Lee Bender, ex-pro skateboarder
For this second installment in the series, 30-year-old Lee Bender, a former pro skateboarder, provides a good example of what’s right and wrong about today’s health care system.
Anyone who has followed my posts over the last few months, or read the introduction to this series, published here last week, should be pretty clear on my feelings about the subject: I believe that the public option is a moral imperative. No one should go bankrupt because he or she gets sick, yet it happens every day, to the extent that it’s the single biggest cause of bankruptcy in America. In part one of this series we looked at Willard “Greg” Jones, a 62-year-old man from Evansville, Indiana, who has a wife with stage-four cancer, and is being throttled by a $39,000 hospital bill that should have been covered by his insurer. Unsurprisingly, he was very unhappy with today’s current system, and an ardent supporter of reform and the public option.
Lee Bender’s feelings provide something of a contrast because they are rather more complex than mine, with a few important caveats. Lee was a professional skateboarder for years out in Arizona before he was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2007. Since then, he’s had to give up his abiding passion of more than 20 years, due to persistent numbness in his hands and feet.
If you ask him (and I did), Lee is actually pretty happy with his insurance. His insurer covers 80% of his medical costs, a staggering amount that includes a few long hospital stays, extensive testing and monthly medication that runs $10,000 a month.
I asked him at one point if he would consider using a public option were it to pass legislation. He said he would consider it. But he would want to make sure that the care were on par with the treatment he’s receiving now, which has kept his MS in remission since he first started taking his medication.
But deeper systemic problems with the health care system still plague him. It’s a matter of simple math. Though he pays only 20% of his costs, with a $10,000-a-month medication bill, that adds up to $2,000 a month he has to cover himself, on top of his premium, which has been rising since he was diagnosed. The premiums alone are a stretch. The two grand a month for medicine is straight debt. As of this writing, he is $36,000 in debt from the medicine alone “just,” as he put it, “to stay functional.”
Hence, though he’s happy with his insurance now, he’s not sure he’ll be able to afford it much longer than a few more years. It’s a contradiction inherent to his situation — a contradiction that is sustainable for now, but may not be for much longer.
Lee’s perfect-world solution has less to do with today’s debate over the public option than with another health care debate we seem to have forgotten about this summer: stem cell research. Lee raises the point that if he were able to get some kind of stem-cell therapy, though the costs would be undoubtedly high in the beginning, the treatment would use his own body to heal itself. Over time, that would save tons on medication costs.
I just met Lee a few months ago when he moved back to Indiana, where he had spent most of his childhood. He’s a tough-minded guy with a great attitude, who’s found a love for custom motorcycles to replace his passion for skateboarding (see some photos, along with a great interview on Typical Culture, here; read Lee’s personal blog, much of it about motorcycling, here). Lee doesn’t smoke or drink, but I’ve spent a good many nights in the last few months hanging out with him in his garage, surrounded by tools and chopped-up bikes, throwing back whiskey and smoking cigarettes with his roommates into the long hours of the muggy Midwestern night. I don’t know him very well yet, but I don’t think he would want me to portray him as a victim. Like last week’s subject, he doesn’t ask for handouts or an abundance of sympathy. But if Lee isn’t a complainer, I’ll complain in his stead, because it’s what I do best. And I will say unequivocally that I believe that the rising premiums and crippling debt he faces just to get by should be unacceptable to anyone with a conscience.
His story doesn’t present a clear cut case of good guy v. bad guy. Life is rarely so simple. But we need to do whatever it takes to make sure people like Lee — and those millions who, unlike him, don’t even have insurance — don’t have to go bankrupt or give up treatment because of galloping medical costs. Lee’s thoughts on stem-cell research and drug company profits are particularly poignant here — a few more pieces of an elaborate puzzle called “reform” that begs an holistic, nuanced approach to deep, systemic ills.
On a production note, I had a few sound issues with this one, but generally I’m pleased. That high pitched sound you may have noticed is the sound of crickets outside Lee’s window — crickets I didn’t think my mic was picking up, lousy as it is. Nothing I could do about it in post-production for now.
Chalk it up to experience, a garbage stage microphone, and a $40 budget. Please enjoy and pass it on.
Big thank yous to John Cole at Balloon-Juice and Andrew Sullivan for their posts on last week’s video. Thanks to them my video got out to a much wider audience than I could have otherwise expected.
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Heart breaking, what else can you say. I have 3 cousins with MS so it’s ravages are nothing new to me. There is an issue here Austin that many aren’t aware of and is a big piece of the health care crisis, the partially disabled. A problem I know all to well having severe crohns disease. We are stuck in damned if you do, damned if you don’t place. Technically I could qualify for full federal disablity, however that wouldn’t give me enough money to live on, I have been priced out of the private health care system. Lucky since I live in NYC I have a public option that provides me coverage. It’s far from perfect, seeing the doctor involves the entire day and if I travel and get sick outside of NYC I’m screwed as I’m only covered in NYC’s public hospitals and they provide me with my meds.
Great job as always Austin.
Thanks, Brian. Your support and friendship, as always, is greatly appreciated.
My aunt, to whom I dedicated the video at the end, also has MS. So, I, too, have seen first-hand what it can do to people.
Lee is doing so well right now, I just really hope that we can manage to make sure guys like him can continue to afford the treatment that insures he’s able to lead a normal life. Your case is proof in my mind that a true public option is the only way.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] The folks at True Slant have the next round up: [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Video Cool, Nolan Nickels and TWEET_HEALTHCARE. TWEET_HEALTHCARE said: Austin Considine – American Crossroads – Faces of American Health …: But deeper systemic problems with the he.. http://bit.ly/3dOgHO [...]
[...] The folks at True Slant have the next round up: [...]
What an incredible project. I am very close to Lee and couldn’t be more grateful to you for bringing awareness to both his story and the health care/insurance/pharmaceutical industries…especially now when it is more important than ever.
Thanks Austin,
Janet
Thanks for the support and the feedback, Janet. I’ve only known Lee for a very short time, but what’s clear to me is that he’s fiercely loved by everyone who knows him.
As for the film, I’m glad that people like you who know and love him (who could rightfully, of course, be my toughest critics if so inclined), have seemed to like the piece so far. Thanks, again, for reaching out!
In response to another comment. See in context »I think you’re much more worried about the minor production issues than the average viewer; the depth of the story distracted me from the crickets.
You’ve done a tremendous job bringing some humanity to what over the summer has become an ad nauseum political struggle. I’ve put both of your vids on my f/b page.
Thanks for always being so supportive, Andy. Means a lot to know people liked this piece. Lee is a great guy and these shorts are actually very labor intensive. I’ll try to keep ‘em coming!
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Considine continues his excellent video series on the true importance of health care reform. These are the voices we’re not hearing enough [...]
I have had Crohn’s for 18 years and have been getting worse and worse. But the medications Ambien and Remeron have been helpful, none prescribed by GI specialist. Flax seed old, 1 tsp per meal has been doublely helpfull . I still take Pentasa, twice a day and have been able to cut back.
Good luck
Wesley
Austin, this is an excellent series – keep it up. I’m finding these pieces very compelling.
This is what health care is about. It’s been mixed up with some kind of faux-Libertarian dogma, but all along it’s about quality of life – in other words, people being able to live their lives in comfort, not under the weight of crushing debt.
Don’t know if you’ve read it, but the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington did a great piece called “the Uninsured Speak.” If you have time, check it out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/21/healthcare-provision-us-uk
Again, well done. Looking forward to more. Keep complaining!
[...] present another hot topic, health care reform in the United States. Part two of a series from Austin Considine called Faces of American Health Care features a sobering look at former pro skater Lee Bender. [...]
[...] health care’ posts. He shot a pair of videos with two men in Indiana – Greg Jones and Lee Bender – and their varying, complicated experiences with our existing health insurance system. But [...]