So I tried really hard to record a video on this, but because this is a difficult subject for me, I couldn't get the words out without crying. So instead I will lay it out for you in a thread. If you've followed me long enough, you may have heard this story before but here we go
I supported @BernieSanders in 2016, for a whole bunch of reasons. Back then #MedicareForAll sounded great, but I didn't quite realize how important that policy is. Then October 20th 2017 happened. I woke to a text from my mom. She said she took my dad to the ER. He had pneumonia.
He's had health problems in the past, so I remained hopeful that everything would be alright. I arrived at the hospital in time to see them putting him on a ventilator. He was in the critical care until, so we would go into his room two at a time. At some point during the day
My mom and little sister were in there with him, while my older sis and myself were in the waiting room. I got a text from my younger sis "Get in here now." I walked in to see medical staff all around him, and one person on him performing chest compressions.
He went into cardiac arrest. When they got him stabilized the doc told us that he had suffered a stroke. They couldn't check his brain for damage because of all the machines he was hooked up to. That's when, per what my father would wish, we put him on a DNR order.
After a night of sleeping on waiting room chairs, a nurse came and got us in the morning. When I got to his room I noticed all of the machines were turned off. After just over a day in the hospital on October 21st 2017, my father's heart stopped once again & he died (He was 55).
It didn't take long for the hospital to send my mom a bill. It was pages and pages long, detailing each thing they did to him and how much it cost. I remember seeing the CPR alone costs about $600. At some point my mom, through her tears, said "He suffered so much"
You just lost someone you love, and now you have to comb through bills to figure out how much everything is going to cost. Luckily my mom's health insurance covered most of it, but had they not she would have lost her husband and been out $54K.
Later my mom told me that when they were admitting my dad into the hospital, they began hounding her for money for previous hospital visits. "They were so cold about it. My husband is over here dying and all they cared about was money."
In the richest country in the history of the world no person should have to worry about paying off medical bills. If someone you love dies or gets diagnosed with a potentially fatal disease, the last thing on your mind should be "how much will this cost?"
And that's why #IEndorseBernie. Because no one has a track record of fighting for a single payer healthcare system like him. He understands that no one should have to live in fear of medical debt.
