A Letter in The Boston Globe!

Here it is - my letter to the editor about the effect that health care coverage is having on my family.
I know that this blog is about homeschooling (well, and knitting) but for the last six months our lives have been as much about health, sickness, and insurance as anything else. And this is really a blog about our life, so this is what I'm blogging about.

In case the links stops working after today, here is the text from the letter:

Crying in pain, and in anguish over coverage woes

November 17, 2011

RE “AT best, Mass. health strategy offers halfway house to universal care’’ (Op-ed, Nov. 10): I really identified with Robert Kuttner’s op-ed. From my family’s standpoint, the health care glass sure looks half empty.

This year, I developed two fairly serious health issues, one chronic. In the midst of this crisis, my husband and I learned that our best health care option for next year, involving priced tiers, would make most of the doctors our family relies upon unaffordable for us as of Jan. 1.

Now I cry myself to sleep, not just from the pain of my physical ailments, but from the anguish of leaving the doctors we chose, including our primary care doctors, our sons’ pediatricians, and four excellent specialists. They’re among the best in their fields, and our relationship with some of them goes back more than a decade.

This experience has shaken my faith not just in our government but in our whole society. I wonder whether the soul-crushing mess that is health care in this country can ever be fixed?

Karen Kolp

Bellingham

Irony of the Day

Our best health care plan option next year is the one that makes six out of the seven doctors we see, including our primary care doctors and some that we've seen for more than a decade, absolutely unaffordable (meaning that we're scrambling for all new doctors).
The name of this plan is the Tufts Your Choice Plan.

Tryin' to get healthy, it continues to be a long road, so I thought it was time to check in for a mini-rant.

I guess what bothers me most about the name of this plan is that it seems intended to make people believe that they're getting more choices, while their choices are simultaneously being limited. Six out of seven doctors, people! It's so patronizing, calling it the Your Choice Plan.

In other news, the boys are good, the weather is lovely - I guess that's owed to us after a gigantic snowfall on the eve of Halloween - and hubby is now making better homemade pizza than I ever did. I continue to feel incredibly lucky, despite some stubborn obstacles to optimum health.

I hope you can say the same, or better!