Forced to Hand Over My Future to Insurance Companies

Every day, thousands of Americans are blindsided by a health emergency. For many, this crisis lasts long beyond the initial diagnosis in the form of exorbitant medical bills and endless struggles with insurance companies.

When I was 33, I had surgery to remove a tumor in my pituitary gland. As a result of the surgery, my pituitary gland stopped functioning, as did my thyroid and adrenal glands, and I became unable to ever have children.

But that wasn’t all I lost. Faced with extremely expensive medical costs, I was forced to hand over my future to the insurance companies.

In the 32 years since my surgery, I have required regular prescriptions and treatments totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.  And until President Obama passed the Affordable Care Act three years ago, I lived with the constant fear that at any moment I could be denied or dropped from my coverage because of my pre-existing conditions.

That fear guided every major decision I made for the last three decades, from what employment opportunities I could pursue to how many more long battles I would fight to get my insurance to pay for another test or prescription.

Though I longed to start my own small business, I was always restricted by the knowledge that I would never be able to afford or possibly even get health insurance. I was limited in my employment choices and only applied to companies that I knew provided insurance. But even though my employers provided group health insurance, my pre-existing conditions were always excluded for the first year of my employment, and I had to pay privately for insurance for that year.

When I retired, there was only one company in the entire state of Pennsylvania that would sell me private health insurance because of my preexisting conditions (and only because they were required to by state law). Until I went on Medicare in June, I had to pay more than $700 per month for my healthcare with a $5,000 deductible policy.

President Obama is committed to freeing Americans from insurance company abuses like these. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, by 2014 129 million Americans with preexisting conditions will no longer have to suffer a lifetime of insurance industry abuses.

The Affordable Care Act also strengthens the Medicare program for 2.3 million Pennsylvania seniors.  Medicare saves me over $8,000 a year in medical costs and allowed me to retire while still getting the life-saving prescriptions I need.

Now thanks to President Obama, the program’s solvency has been extended by 8 years, and we are gradually closing the Medicare doughnut hole – which has already saved 236,000 Pennsylvanians an average of $660 each.

However, Mitt Romney will turn his back on us seniors by ending Medicare as we know it. He would force seniors on Medicare to pay more for their prescription drugs and preventive care, all to help pay for his tax cuts for the wealthiest. In fact, a recent report from the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation shows that if Romney’s Medicare plan had been in place this year for today’s seniors like me, nearly 60 percent of us would have had to pay a lot more to get the same coverage that we have today.

Not only will President Obama continue to protect seniors on Medicare and Americans with pre-existing conditions, but he will also keep fighting to defend equal access to healthcare for women. For the first time in my life, the Affordable Care Act now ensures that women like me can no longer be charged more for insurance simply because of our gender.

Just four years ago, 3.8 million Pennsylvania women could be discriminated against for having been pregnant, abused, or for simply being female. Now, thanks to President Obama, women not only have equal access to healthcare, but they can get the preventive services that they need like mammograms and birth control without paying anything out of pocket.

We’ve had a chance to get to know Mitt Romney well in the six years he’s been running for President. And despite his recent attempts to pretend otherwise, the women of this country can’t forget who Romney is or what he’s promised when it comes to our health.

Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan would turn some of women’s most personal health care decisions—like birth control coverage—over to their employer and let government intrude on women’s health rights and freedoms.

What Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan fail to understand is that these issues are not just women’s issues.  By repealing Obamacare and ending free preventative healthcare, he will force mothers to once again choose between mammograms or groceries for their kids. Sons will have to sacrifice more to care for their aging mothers at the expense of opportunities for their own children. Americans can’t afford to turn back the clock by electing Mitt Romney.

So, as a Medicare recipient, a survivor of a serious medical condition, a woman and an American, the choice in this election for me is clear.

On November 6, I will cast my ballot for President Obama.