A well-to-do couple in Pretoria, South Africa, recently spent one month living in the slums on the outside of town.
As reported in the New York Times, the young couple, Julian and Ena Hewitt, moved into a 100-square-foot shack with no running water or electricity. Called an experiment of “radical empathy,” the couple learned to live on $10 a day. With them were their two children, ages 4 and 2. Needless to say, they came away with a life lesson on the difference between the haves and the have-nots, as well as determined to devote at least a part of their lives to bridge the gap.
The story came to mind while researching the Affordable Care Act and realizing its vast ramifications. For the first time in U.S. history, every citizen will have a better shot at having health insurance.
Most people reading this newspaper don’t know what it’s like to be on the other side of the tracks. For those with full-time employment, chances are their jobs come with health insurance. If retired, Medicare picks up the bulk of the tab.
But it doesn’t take much imagination — or a daring experiment like the South African couple — to know what it would be like to be denied the perks of prosperity.
After a tumble down a flight of stairs in early June, I experienced chronic back pain and internal bleeding for the rest of the summer. My back still seizes up for unknown reasons. A slew of tests confirmed all is good. Even so, the repercussions from that 3-second fall now put me in the category of having a chronic condition. If I were shopping for health insurance I would be denied for having a pre-existing condition. That is until now, when by law, health insurance companies cannot deny coverage for any reason.
My husband, Brian, is in the same boat. He’s had three discectomies on his lower back. To insurers, he, too, bears the “black spot.”
Despite our otherwise good level of health, in the eyes of the insurance industry we would be classified as undesirables.
We all know people waiting for 2014 to ring in so they can finally be under the umbrella of health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. Many of the self-employed — farmers, pet groomers, seamstresses, beauticians, house cleaners, carpenters — have not been able to afford health insurance on their own. As a result, they have been just an accident away from poverty if they were to incur a major medical expense. In rural America, especially, health benefits have not been the norm.
THE INSURANCE business has made its money by having a vast majority of its clients be young, healthy and strong. These clients pay for coverage they rarely use. The formula has made health insurance a very profitable business.
Because of a universal mandate to have health insurance, the industry will remain vibrant, which is fine. But the playing field will be fairer, with fewer left on the sidelines.
That’s something we can all be proud of.
—Susan Lynn
