My Lack of Health Insurance Nightmare

Posted on February 2, 2011 in Bipolar Disorder Insurance

Lipstick Chronicles is mourning the passing of Melissa Mia Hall who died because she could not afford to see a doctor. “She knew she needed medical care,” writes Sarah Strohmeyer, “but feared a visit would result in a lengthy hospital stay that would “ruin her credit rating.”

Twenty years ago I worked at a company with the most minimal of health plans and employers who believed that they had a right to scrutinize every claim the insurance paid out. I knew I was sick — anxiety clutched my chest, depression kept me from sleeping, and, for brief intervals, I felt the boundless impulsiveness of mania. But my employer did not believe in “wasting his money” on a plan that included mental health benefits. So in these pre-parity days, I held on as best I could in a company that kept me in layoff after layoff. Pressure mounted and in the end, after the company folded, I responded by going into mania and volunteering to work in former Yugoslavia.

Several things would have been possible if I had had single-payer health insurance. First, I could have quit that awful job and educated myself towards a new, more appropriate career. Second, I could have received the psychiatric care that I needed. In 1994, while on my wife’s plan, I did receive some, though I was misdiagnosed for 11 years. I’m afraid that it was too late for me, though. Though therapists have tried to push me back into working again — always imagining a world where an intelligent, fifty three year old man with 16 years of unemployment can go back to school and start again as a professional — I’ve been locked out by my illness and by economic realities.

Like Melanie I was afraid of what would happen to my credit rating, so I did not do what I needed to do for my health. I couldn’t afford decent therapy or psychiatry. And it cost me my credit rating for a time, my salary, and my dignity.