Faces of American Health Care, Pt. Three: Shane’s Bittersweet Blessing
Follow the links to part one and part two.
Sometimes, in the course of one’s search for the Truth (capital “T”), one finds the truth is a complex, difficult shrew to tame.
Case in point: At 30 years old, Shane Hutte suffered a seizure and woke up 12 days later in an Indianapolis hospital. It was the first seizure of his life, catching him and his family completely unawares.
Doctors traced the origins of his late-occurring epilepsy to a basilar skull fracture Shane sustained as a child, owing to a tyrannical, physically abusive step-father. As Shane put it to me himself, the abuse was something he thought he had already learned to deal with. Older now, a wife and two kids of his own, he’d done his best by learning never to abuse the people he loves — to be a bigger man than the small, small man that terrorized him in his youth.
Years later: Iniquity for the sins of the father. Or, as PT Anderson wrote in Magnolia, “We may be finished with the past, but the past isn’t finished with us.”
Shane looked for insurance after his hospitalization. He was rejected severally — told not to bother until he’d been seizure free for at least five years. Even then, he’d be considered high risk.
But Shane is also blessed, and he knows it — even if his blessing is bittersweet. After two more hospitalizations, his hospital and pharmaceutical bills should be sky high. Yet, because of his low household income, he was eligible for Indiana’s Health Care for the Indigent program — funded, in part by Medicaid — which absolved him of his immense emergency hospitalization debts.
Furthermore, GlaxoSmithKline, makers of the medication that keeps him seizure-free, keep him medicated for free through its “Bridges to Access” program.
It’s hardly surprising that the insurance companies have failed him: But he and his family have their heads above water only because of a makeshift federal- and state-level public option plan. This, in an historically conservative state, represented in Congress by “Blue Dog” Democrat, Evan Bayh, who appears to think people like Shane are stupid enough to vote against their own interests.
His makeshift public plan also owes a huge debt to Big Pharma. Other than the insurance industry and Shane’s step-father, it’s tough to pin-down the bad guys in this one.
The ironies are clear, if truth be somewhat elusive. Welcome to a broken health care system — a broken culture — where we fight against better forms of what we already use and need. Where a person with a pre-existing condition must be broke in order not to worry about being bankrupted by medical bills.
Big thanks to Shane and his family for all the help on this. Maybe someday I’ll get a budget (and a crew!) to do these stories better justice. In the meantime, I invite everyone’s thoughts.
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Medical care in the U.S. is such a riddle. Everyone wants personal insurance, no one wants to pay for it. The people who truly need chronic care can’t afford it and often can’t work enough to earn it as a workplace benefit. Work-provided insurance is a burden on employers, yet it’s the only group benefit that makes it affordable for the insured and profitable for the insurers. Young, vibrant people who usually don’t need care are also having kids – who do need more medical care – and can’t afford to NOT work when the kids don’t have medical care.
The real villains are not necessarily politicians, but political groups who pursue broad agendas that only serve their power aggregation. Then puts too much pressure on elected officials to never sincerely nor adequately serve the grassroots base. Our politicians chase this “what if” scenario painted by pundits and the parties. The filters between the American people and our government policies are worn, old, clogged and fetid.
damn well said
In response to another comment. See in context »Couldn’t have said it better, SuperK8. Thanks for the thoughtful, articulate comments.
Though I, perhaps, wouldn’t let the politicians quite as much off the hook… they’re still supposed to answer to the people who elect them
In response to another comment. See in context »BITTERSWEET? THIS HEALTH CARE WILL HURT MANY PEOPLE IN AMERICA. don’t allow them to turn your entire working health system into a third world broken down joke; people will die in the future if its passed
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We’re in serious trouble as a country when so many families are just one health-care crisis away from bankruptcy. Shane Hutte got lucky, and he is grateful, but would this story turn out the same way for someone else in the same situation in another state?
The problem is manifold: Maybe someone in another state could get help like Shane has, but would they necessarily even know about what programs are available. I guarantee Shane (like me, and like, I’m guessing, most people in America) probably didn’t know about HCI before he got sick. He’s lucky the hospital pointed him in the right direction.
Ditto, of course, for the free drugs he gets.
But then there are all those people and families out there who are just a little better off than Shane: not poor enough to qualify for programs like HCI, but not wealthy enough to afford $70,000 medical bills.
In response to another comment. See in context »Amazing story Austin….
Thanks, Jessica. Great to hear from you, as always…
In response to another comment. See in context »Very nice film making. I’m glad Shane was able to get help with his medical bills and his medication. God bless him and his lovely family.