Last October — exactly a week before my 17th birthday — my mother was hospitalized with pericardial effusion. What had seemed like simple shoulder pain turned into a weeks-long stay in the intensive care unit, as my dad camped out with her in the hospital and my grandparents took care of me.
For us, insurance was never a concern. Access to the best specialists, treatments and accommodations was always within reach — but still, as I sat alone in the hospital waiting room (or with my dad, doing trigonometry homework), many “what ifs” ran through my head. What would have happened to my mother if we didn’t have insurance? Would she have received the same level of care? Would we have hesitated to take her to the hospital at all? I was worried that the effusion was caused by cancer, that my mom would die on a hospital gurney, or that she would miss my birthday. What I wasn’t worried about? Not being able to afford treatment at all.
The question of what health care costs — or, more accurately, what it should cost — is one that can’t be ignored, especially after the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on a Manhattan street Dec. 4. The attack suspected to have been carried out by Luigi Mangione, whose mother endured years of unlivable pain after hitting her deductible early on, reignited a national debate about the ethics of for-profit health care — and for me, it was impossible to separate the headlines from my lived experience. Mr. Mangione’s mother suffered and suffered because she didn’t receive proper care for her condition, and he himself endured years of chronic back pain — and I would bet that had that been my own mother, I would’ve been homicidal, too.
For so many, the system seems designed to fail. Mr. Thompson’s murder was a shocking act of violence, and of course, nothing excuses blatant murder. But this specific one exposed the frustration and desperation simmering beneath the surface of our health care system.
Wealth is, and has always been, a shield in America. My family’s situation meant that when my mom’s life was in the balance, we didn’t have to weigh it against our bank account. We didn’t have to fight with an insurance company over coverage or agonize over whether an ambulance ride would send us into bankruptcy. But for many, those are daily realities. A study from the National Library of Medicine found that nearly two-thirds of bankruptcies in the United States are tied to medical issues, either because of high costs or lost income due to illness. Obviously, that’s an extremely grim statistic.
For those of us with privilege, it’s easy to think of the system as flawed but functional — and if you feel that this act of violence was uncalled for, it should give you pause to consider the millions of silent murders committed by the country’s health care system every day that target those who don’t have the money or privilege to access adequate medical treatments. The only difference? This one was louder.
