Wounded and Pregnant, an Aurora Family Without Health Coverage
'Obamacare' was designed to help workers without insurance
Among the casualties there happens to be a young family whose plight illustrates another hotly debated national disgrace: the absence of universal health coverage.
In the audience that night sat Caleb Medley and his very pregnant wife, Katie, who had come out for the first showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora. Like many expecting couples, they were enjoying a last small fling, bracing for the months to come when date nights at the movies would no longer be possible. Caleb is an aspiring comedian who has worked at Walmart and Target, while Katie is studying to become a veterinary technician. Within a few days, the high-school sweethearts anticipated the birth of a boy, already named Hugo.
When the shooting began, Katie and her unborn son escaped, but a round hit Caleb in the head; he lost an eye and suffered some brain damage. Currently in a medically induced coma, he will remain in intensive care for at least two weeks—and in the hospital for much longer. If he recovers, his hospital expenses could total as much as $2 million, according to CBS News, which broke their story.
Added to that will be the costs of his wife's pregnancy—unexpected but welcomed by Caleb and Katie as "a blessing"—and the delivery of their baby.
Charity Is the Only Answer for Now
A low-wage retail employee and a student at a technical school, young and working-class. Of course, they have no health insurance. They are the people that Obamacare was designed to help, the people whose troubles are ignored daily in the national media unless they happen to draw attention in a spectacular disaster—and now they are collateral damage in a system that has denied coverage to millions of people in one of the world's wealthiest countries, while other nations routinely protect all of their citizens.
The president's health care reforms will be realized too late to help the Medley family, whose financial future is likely to be ruined, even if Caleb recovers, by the enormous costs they will now incur. Their distress recalls the awful and revealing moment during the Republican primary debate in Tampa, Fla., last September, when members of the "conservative" tea party audience cried "let him die" about a hypothetical young man who falls catastrophically ill without health insurance.
Above the catcalls of the crowd, Ron Paul tried to sugarcoat this bestiality by saying the best way to care for such individuals is through private charity—which, as he knows very well, has neither the scale nor the organization to assist the millions of uninsured in America today. Until we establish a fully civilized health care system, however, charity is ironically the only way to help a family like the Medleys—which is why their friends have set up a website to collect donations on their behalf.
They have raised about $15,000 so far. I hope they raise $2 million or more. Let every donation serve as a fitting rebuke to the tea party mentality that would let a young father like Caleb Medley—and any other innocent victim unlucky enough to lack health insurance—simply suffer the consequences alone. And let every donation demonstrate what "family values" should truly mean in a decent country, where no family is left undefended against cruel circumstance.
Joe Conason is the editor in chief of NationalMemo.com.
© 2012 Creators.com
Anonymous is correct. These two are in no position to even consider having children. This was a terrible decision by two people who, even before this tragedy, would be unable to appropriately provide for this child. It's not the fault of the government. It is the continued bad decision making by people who refuse to accept responsibility for their actions.
Thanks goodness there are other narrow minded bigots like you and me, Anonymous. I love your short sighted views of the world, oh so much! Your willingness to display your penchant towards child abuse lets me know that foolishness is, indeed, alive and well. We ignorant, compassionless, dense Conservatives must stick together. Right Anonymous?
But when Obamacare finally gets fixed and evolves into a full public health system, no business large or small will even have to bother setting aside money to pay for employee healthcare, they will not need to provide any healthcare benefits. This will be a day of FREEDOM for the business entrepeneur.
Small business will be able to hire from all talented people, not just from the young and healthy, they will not need to push their older more experienced staff to move on.
People who do not have to fear lack of healthcare coverage will not need to protect themselves in a safe, take-no-risks job in a large corporation, where they carefully do the minimum to avoid being fired. We could actually end up with a work force that tries harder, works smarter!
Who would lose? the Healthcare Insurers, and the Healthcare Providers! If EVERYONE was properly educated and made healthy choices, even Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig would not exist, Froedtert and Aurora would not be as big.
Who among you would rather spend your hard-earned money on a good time or luxury rather than medical bills!
So, lemme get this straight, Anonymous: you're blaming the victims of this tragedy? I've watched this site and you haven't said one thing to condemn the senseless act of shooting unarmed people with automatic weapons. You, sir, are the worst kind of person. I mean, the worst. You display the base ignorance of the most stupid kind of person. You've never, ever posted anything on this site that was worth the time to read it. You are a meaningless, worthless little man who, if there's any mercy or justice in this world, will be forgotten the moment you're gone.
The shooting is a different topic. These people could have been hit by an object falling from the sky. The point I'm trying to make is WTF was this couple thinking? Getting pregnant without insurance. Wasting money on movies when they should have bought health insurance. When tragedy does strike, The victim should not be blamed for the tragedy. The victims should he held repsonsible for NOT HAVING HEALTH INSURANCE LIKE A NORMAL GETS!!
Key words... "healthy and in my 20's", to explain why your health insurance is so cheap. They are taking your $71 a month, and you are buying your own OTC meds when you sneeze, they are not paying for it from your $71.
Ways of making money...
1) You buy products, which a manufacturer had to buy raw materials and pay workers. Some of the customers money gets passed through to workers, or to other companies and their workers. Money passes through.
2) You buy services, where the provider also has to pay workers. In both, when all goes well, they get just a little more money out of you than what it cost them to serve you. Both keep a little bit of profit to cover the statistical "bad shit", like warranties and recalls. Over all, money passes through.
3) Insurance is another story. When all goes according to plan, insurance takes your premium, and does not pay because you never file a claim. They are selling you a "promise" that only gets fulfilled when something does not go according to plan, when 'bad shit" happens. When the customer is "wisely" chosen, money does NOT pass through, "They buck stops here"... at the stockholders desk!
Note that the fine print weaseled in by their lawyers, and glossed over by your sales agent, makes it so that most of the bad shit that happens, they will not need to pay for, so that makes this an "empty promise", that you bought out of fear! If this sort of thing began to happen a lot, then watch the insurance language change to exempt paying for care after "acts of NRA War".
That's also how Conservative Republicans work, they make decisions out of fear, fear of losing their privileged edge over the classes of people they have chosen to take advantage of. But they will not use the word "discriminate" to describe what they call "choice".
At 28, you qualify for HIRSP through the state. You could get a $5000 deductible policy for probably $2000 a year. Thats a a real bargain considering you would have access to the best health care in the world. If you make less than $34k a year you qualify for a subsidy. You might even qualify for BadgerCare. Anybody who goes out and works a few jobs, avoids the cokes and smokes, should be able to afford insurance.