A broken bone--and mounting debt
AS IF being a member of the lost generation of young workers wasn't bad enough, I had to go and break my collarbone.
Upon graduating from a liberal arts university last year, I initially thought finding a job would be fairly easy. I was proven quite wrong, and today still consider myself lucky to have landed a job providing food service to university students who will suffer the same fate as me in the years to come. I consider myself lucky, because unlike many of my classmates, I was able to find a job that provides me with minimal benefits and health insurance.
With all jobs come transportation costs. In an effort to save every penny possible, I chose to ride my bike to work. All was going well until three weeks ago, when I was injured by two forms of green transportation. While riding home from work, my bike tires got stuck in the light rail tracks, and I was violently thrown from my bike.
It quickly became apparent that there was something wrong with my shoulder. Observers offered to call for an ambulance, but even with insurance, I was wary of being charged two or three month's pay for an emergency room visit, and instead chose to wait until the next morning to call my doctor and beg for an appointment.
Three weeks and a surgical procedure later, my collarbone is back in place. My arm now resides in a sling, and I will be lucky if I can return to work in two or three weeks. I still have yet to receive the final bill for the tests, X-rays, general anesthetic and my stay in an understaffed hospital. I will be lucky if I slide by owing less than $7,000--after my insurance pays their chunk of the $17,000 and counting.
This experience has brought the failure of capitalism to care for workers into much clearer focus for me by providing an example of how quickly the fragile balancing act of scraping by is shattered when one thing goes wrong.
Due to my injury, I cannot perform work, and because I am physically not qualified to perform work, I am ineligible for unemployment benefits. I also do not qualify for disability benefits, because they are not given for periods of less than a year. So I am left to scrape by with the meager state assistance of food stamps and help from my parents, who are lucky enough to have both kept their jobs.
There is also the painful reality that while I slowly drain my bank account to survive, interest continues to accrue on my student loans while the payments creep closer to their due dates. This is the reward that capitalism has bestowed on me for "greening my routine" and riding my bike to work.
All throughout this process, I have been told by receptionists and billing staff how great my health insurance is--however, it is a far cry from the health care I received while being covered under my parents' union plans. This makes me wonder what "good" health insurance constitutes--co-insurance of less than 50 percent? Your insurance company willing to dole out over $500 a year in office visits? A co-pay of less than $300?
Throughout this process, I can't help but think of how different this situation would have been if we lived in a society where people were valued over profit. I could have called an ambulance, received the treatment I needed without regard to cost, and wouldn't be pushing myself to return to work early because of bills that are mounting.
As long as the system of capitalism remains in power, there will be those scraping by in worse conditions than our own. While our heads are above the water, it is easy to look to the masses of those less fortunate and be thankful for the crumbs that capitalism has thrown us. However, this attitude will do nothing to lower my 30 percent co-insurance, nor will it provide the millions without health insurance any sort of crummy plan like my own.
What we need to do instead is to unite together and build a grassroots movement that can press for something so much better--single-payer health care.
Katheryn Brooks, Portland, Ore.
