Is Steve Jobs better than me?

In a rare moment of humility, I’ll admit that I’m not the smartest person in the world.  Whew!  Even further, I may not even be the smartest person I know, but I’d confidently put myself in the top 5.  And as one of the smartest people I know, I can recognize brilliance when I see it, and Steve Jobs is a brilliant guy.  He founded Apple, left, then came back to the tune of $1 a year and stock options worth a gazillion dollars.  He deserves the money, says she who types this blog from a shiny new MacBook while gazing lovingly at her iPhone 3G.  Apple has killer products, killer branding, and everyone knows this – even Bill Gates (who is also brilliant and deserving of my compliments).

But does Steve Jobs deserve better healthcare than the rest of us?

He announced this week that he got a liver transplant during his 5-month leave from Apple, and thank God he’s doing well and getting back to work.  The rest of us aren’t always so lucky, considering that Steve all but bought his new liver.  I don’t really have a problem with that because, well, he can afford it, and because he’s now promoting organ donation and registry to everyone who follows him, all quintillion of us.  The philanthropist in me, and the person who is herself an organ donor, applauds the use of personal illness as a social movement.  And I’m about to do the same thing right here.

When you have a bunch of money, or work for a corporation that has a bunch of money, you get the best healthcare money can buy.  Look at Magic Johnson.  But when you have some money, or no money and no job or a random job with no health insurance, you might not look as shiny and happy as Magic or Steve.  You’re probably waiting at the emergency room or the free clinic right now, or somewhere praying that you and yours never get sick.  And I’m not talking about flu and stomach virus sick.  I mean really, chronically, I-need-a-specialist ill.  Cancer, diabetes, heart attack…car accident.  It can happen to anyone at any time, no matter how well we take care of ourselves, and most of us really don’t.

I’ve been that sick, and I suppose that I still am, and I kinda have health insurance.  After a 5-month medical leave, I didn’t go back to work like Steve Jobs, I got sacked.  Canned with no severance, only some unused vacation time and the option to use COBRA to continue my medical coverage to the tune of over $600 a month for an individual!  Unemployment only gives you $1600 a month, so where do food and rent fit into this picture?  Luckily I could move in with family until I get back on my feet and cut back on a few things, but what if I didn’t have that?

I toyed with the idea of not having COBRA, but I take medication every day which would cost over $600 a month on its own.  Plus regular Dr. visits to the tune of about $600 a month sans insurance.  And its time for my yearly gyno exam and related tests, which likely cost $1000 for the visit and the labs if you have to pay out of pocket; can’t do that yet.  Then there’s the ear infection that I have, which needs a specialist visit then some medication and follow-up.  I haven’t seen the ENT yet because I’m waiting for the COBRA to kick in, but my neck now hurts, my ears are ringing, and my ear canal is swollen shut – no, I’m serious, it really is.  So I’m not homeless, old, uneducated, an immigrant, or a parent and I could be looking at some potentially bankrupting healthcare costs.  There but for the grace of God go you or anyone you know.  Of course I signed up for COBRA, and thanked God that Obama put a subsidy in the stimulus plan: I now pay 35% (under $200) of the original out-of-pocket cost, which used to cost me about $65 when I was working and could honestly have afforded to pay the full premium.

So it kills me that when President Obama reveals a healthcare reform bill that could make my situation better, all some people can do is BOO him and call him a liar.  Or harp on one small provision in the plan that will allegedly turn us into socialists.  (Some of these folk probably went to State colleges, which is the public education option, so I think they should have their education costs pro-rated for inflation and increased to the costs of a private university, then have to pay it all, TODAY, into Social Security and Medicare just for being selfish and ridiculous and short-sighted.  I got your death panel right here, Joe Wilson!  On a side note his website is “temporarily unavailable…[d]ue to exceptionally high traffic”.  Or due to the fact that he’s a rude jackass.  If I didn’t have to save my money for medical bills, I’d be in his face right now…)

But wait a minute: I forgot to mention that the majority of my medical bills are for mental health.  You know, the sickness you can’t see so you can’t really prove it.  I should be lucky that my care is covered under insurance at all.  I’m not saying that operations and chemotherapy and radiation aren’t serious.  But I am saying that my disease is serious and should be covered too.  I’ve already said my peace about antidepressants and the like, and that they do work.  But the meds that I take aren’t covered at the dose that I take because some accountant at United Healthcare decided that it costs too much.  So even though I have a scrip written by a doctor, and even though I’ve been doing better than ever at this dosage for the last 6 months, I still have to pay over $200 a month with insurance for my pills.  That is, when they let me have them all at the same time.  The insurance company sometimes refuses to pay the whole amount at once, and I have to go back to the pharmacy every 2 weeks.  Compare this with the fact that I think my dad went to the V.A. for a non-essential Viagra prescription and probably paid less than $20 for it.  Insert appropriate outrage here, then request a personal refund on all the penis pills issued this year.

For those of you who say, “how about therapy instead of drugs?” let me say that I’m in therapy and my insurance plan (which is actually “Cadillac” compared to others I’ve seen) only covers 20 or 30 mental health visits a year, not the once-a-week sessions that are needed to monitor meds and get the full therapeutic effect.  Plus the copay is higher than for other specialists- $50 or $60 a visit.  Its a little thing called “mental health parity” which Ted Kennedy was working on, with his son Patrick (who also happens to suffer from bipolar), before he died.  This is why we all love the Kennedys:  they’re just as screwed up as the rest of us, but they turn it into something really great for the public.  I sorely missed Teddy’s voice during this last round of reform discussions.

Even though I rant, I’m not that bad off compared to the folks President Obama mentioned in his speech last night.  People who have been bankrupt by medical costs, or kicked off insurance for using it too much and eating up profits in Hartford, or having kids so sick that they can’t work even though they need to in order to afford treatment.  I’m incredibly lucky.  And thankful.  Thankful that I still live in a country where we still have choices and would continue to have them under Obama’s healthcare plan, no matter what Charles Boustany and the rest of the GOP want you to believe.

By the way, the good Dr. Boustany has degrees from good ol’ public schools University of Louisiana and Louisiana State…guess someone forced him to go there instead of Tulane!  The Democrats in Louisiana should ask for a refund on his education.

(T. Lynn Lloyd steps carefully off her soap-box, trying desperately not to trip on her way down.)