open letter to the MA Health Connector
Jul. 20th, 2009 12:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtleDear Health Connector,
Thanks for running this contest, asking people to tell their stories about why they are happy to have health insurance. I think it's great to have a wide range of personal stories as well as financial statistics to show why health insurance is such a good idea. I won't be entering the contest myself, though. I wouldn't, even if I really wanted the Red Sox tickets you're offering as a prize.
If I didn't have good health care, I would be so disabled by chronic pain and depression that I couldn't work at all. Thanks to the Health Connector, I have been able to afford health care when I was looking for work, or working intermittent contract jobs with no benefits. That makes me healthy enough to work 40-45 hours/week, doing the kind of scientific work I was trained for. Unfortunately, chronic pain and depression are both heavily stigmatized. Many employers would rather not hire somebody with that kind of problem, even if it's controlled well enough to not affect job performance. I don't want you to publicize my story, because I rely on medical privacy to protect me from discrimination.
I expect you'll get stories from lots of people whose lives were saved by health insurance. Or their children's lives. Stories of life and death are certainly dramatic, and a program that saves lives is impressive. But I wonder how many people are using health insurance to stay on the employable side of marginal disabilities? (Is the state as a whole supposed to turn a profit? Or is it just health insurance that is supposed to take in more money than it spends?) Those people are tremendously happy to have health insurance, but they aren't going to tell you about it, if they are trying to keep stigmatized disorders hidden.
Best wishes,
[name withheld]
ETA: Hours later, I noticed that I wrote "those people" to refer to a group that includes me. At the end of a letter *about* being a member of that stigmatized group. Speaking of stigma.
Thanks for running this contest, asking people to tell their stories about why they are happy to have health insurance. I think it's great to have a wide range of personal stories as well as financial statistics to show why health insurance is such a good idea. I won't be entering the contest myself, though. I wouldn't, even if I really wanted the Red Sox tickets you're offering as a prize.
If I didn't have good health care, I would be so disabled by chronic pain and depression that I couldn't work at all. Thanks to the Health Connector, I have been able to afford health care when I was looking for work, or working intermittent contract jobs with no benefits. That makes me healthy enough to work 40-45 hours/week, doing the kind of scientific work I was trained for. Unfortunately, chronic pain and depression are both heavily stigmatized. Many employers would rather not hire somebody with that kind of problem, even if it's controlled well enough to not affect job performance. I don't want you to publicize my story, because I rely on medical privacy to protect me from discrimination.
I expect you'll get stories from lots of people whose lives were saved by health insurance. Or their children's lives. Stories of life and death are certainly dramatic, and a program that saves lives is impressive. But I wonder how many people are using health insurance to stay on the employable side of marginal disabilities? (Is the state as a whole supposed to turn a profit? Or is it just health insurance that is supposed to take in more money than it spends?) Those people are tremendously happy to have health insurance, but they aren't going to tell you about it, if they are trying to keep stigmatized disorders hidden.
Best wishes,
[name withheld]
ETA: Hours later, I noticed that I wrote "those people" to refer to a group that includes me. At the end of a letter *about* being a member of that stigmatized group. Speaking of stigma.
