There is no time for shame in a recession

An interesting account of this woman’s suffering. Most of the suffering revolves around how the USA health care system is still broken, even under Obamacare:

Last year, during a ten-month period, the following happened in this exact order: I got separated from my husband of two decades, who, having lost his job to the recession, moved across the country to start a business, leaving me as sole provider and parent to our two children still at home; I abandoned the novel I was working on and found a job with benefits as an Executive Editor at a health and wellness website; I took a boarder into the room newly abandoned by my college freshman to help pay my rent, which the new owners had hiked up an extra $900 a month because they could; I was diagnosed with stage 0 breast cancer; I watched my company, which was preparing to go public, fire dozens of qualified people within my first month of work, after which I was informed that my job, too, was on the chopping block; I survived the cancer but was fired from my job. Then, unable to afford my rent any longer, I moved my remaining family into smaller digs.

During those first couple of months without a salary, before my small severance kicked in, I tried in vain to procure a contract to write a new book. I also received a bill from COBRA for $1,764.29 to cover my family of five for the month of April. I called ADP, the company managing our COBRA account, and asked if I could pay quarterly instead of monthly. No problem, said Christy, the nice woman manning the phone. I wrote down the reference number for our call: 2-7068130583. Then, well before the end of that quarter, I sent ADP a check for $5,292.87.

ADP cashed it. Then they immediately cancelled my COBRA coverage. “What? Why?” I asked the new person, not Christy, who answered the phone. He sounded as if he were in a call center in India. I explained I’d already visited the doctor with my three children for our annual physicals, assuming I was covered. Having to pay that bill alone would sink me.

“Because you needed to pay monthly,” he said, “like the letters we sent you said you had to do.” I told him about Christy and my reference number. He told me if I disagreed with this decision, I could write an appeal. I wrote an appeal. It was denied. Without any money to hire a lawyer or file a second appeal, that was the end of that. It took three months to get my $5,292.87 back. I had to call several times to remind the people at the call center in India to send the check. When they finally did send it, they sent it to my old address.

I tried applying for Obamacare immediately afterward, but because three months—the quarter during which I thought I was covered—had officially elapsed since my coverage was cancelled, I was not in the 60-day window required to apply. I could file for coverage during the next open enrollment, I was told. Meaning November 15th. Problem was, I had an appointment for an MRI at Sloan Kettering in August to make sure my mass hadn’t returned. Without insurance, the MRI alone would run me over $6,000.00. I pushed off the MRI until October and prayed for a break on the job front and good health.

Later that month, after my severance ran out, I made a Hail Mary pass, flew out to LA on airline points, crashed with a friend, and left my 8-year-old in the care of his 17-year-old sister back in New York for three days so that a colleague and I could pitch a TV pilot. A few weeks later, I collapsed on the kitchen floor of my new apartment when I heard we’d sold it. This meant, among other things, I’d get WGA health benefits. But not until April 1st of next year.

The email from The Container Store asking for holiday help arrived a week before my rescheduled MRI. Of course I applied! You would have, too, if you had one kid paying his own way through college, another applying, no health coverage, a bum boob, a broken marriage, and an empty bank account. There is no time for shame in a recession. You do what you have to do.