Healthcare, MAHA, MAGA
I went to urgent care yesterday with an infected bug bite. While I was waiting to be seen a man walked in with his daughter. She couldn’t have been older than 10. He complained of some rash or bites that they both had, and gave the receptionist their information, including insurance. Five minutes later the receptionist called him back up and informed him that his insurance was ok, but his daughter’s Medicaid hap lapsed, and she was no longer covered. So he had three options. Pay out of pocket, easily $200, which was not an option for him and is probably not an option for many people on Medicaid. Call Medicaid and see if they could reinstate her in time for the visit. Or go to the emergency room where they would have to treat her regardless of insurance.
This is the country we live in. This is the healthcare system we have. Where a child can be denied treatment because of a lapse in coverage, likely for some asinine reason like incomplete paperwork that needs to be resubmitted regularly, sometimes as much as quarterly depending on the benefit. A constant re-verification of eligibility to make sure no one is cheating the system. When you see or hear about an adult being denied treatment or not having insurance, or about the millions of people without coverage, it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t feel right. But when you see a child in the flesh being denied treatment, and being told no, it stings in a whole different way.
The question that keeps coming back to me over and over again is: “What the fuck is wrong with us? Why do we allow this type of nonsense to take place? Why do we accept it as just the way it is? Why are more people not outraged?!” It makes me insane. The current administration ran with a new movement called MAHA. Make America Healthy Again, led by RFK, Jr. To my knowledge the only thing they have done is reduced the number of mandatory vaccines for children, and maybe banned a toxic ingredient or two from being allowed into our foods. And at the MAGA level all they have done is reduced funding for SNAP and Medicaid, and made it more difficult for Americans to receive these benefits. Likely resulting in millions of Americans losing their health insurance and creating millions more food insecure homes. Limiting access to food and healthcare, two things that should be our right as humans, and two vital components of health, is a very clear indication that the administration has no real interest in making Americans healthy.
It was all just another charade. Charade, after charade, after charade, is what we get, while children are denied access to healthcare. It is an insane and sick country that we are living in, and I don’t see how it ever changes unless the whole system is upended or the whole system collapses. And unfortunately it seems that far too many of us are content to let it slowly burn down around us, instead of demanding the change we know we need. One day we’ll all look back and wonder how we didn’t see it coming.