Mental Health and ACA

I have been to forum after forum about health care reform over the last three years and one thing I have noticed: All the talk is about physical health care. Literally NONE of the discussion has focused on MENTAL health. Yet, people without health insurance are just as much in need of mental health care services as they are for physical illness. 

This is demonstrated best by someone like me. I have been unemployed for 3 1/2 years and lost my health insurance about 18 months in. I lost my unemployment benefits six months later. So, I have NO personal income, no assets, no bank account but lots of stresses: creditors who harass me constantly, an elderly mother who has to work part time to keep us housed and fed, even though she has Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a condo worth only 1/5 of what we originally mortgaged it for. The longer I go without employment, the worse it gets, in every way. With no health care, my asthma remains unmanaged and uncontrolled. I am no longer able to see my primary care physician on a regular basis, so the anti-depression and anti-anxiety medications she prescribed for me are not monitored regularly.

The consequences of this combination of circumstances has been rather disastrous for me.  The longer I am unable to find a job, the worse I feel about myself and my circumstances. The more hopeless I feel. The more useless I feel. The longer I have no income, the more stress creditors put on me and the more desperate I feel. The longer  this goes on, the guiltier I feel about my mom and the more I feel that she's be better off without me. The worse I feel about myself, the less likely I am to be able to find a job. This cycle of despair and hopelessness has led me to become extremely depressed and suicidal. The depression indicates that perhaps my meds are not working or need to be adjusted, but I have been unable to afford to go to the doctor. So, last week, I planned to commit suicide. I decided to jump off an overpass head first. All my research showed that even at a relatively low altitude, a head first jump is most likely to be successful. Yes, I researched it. If I am going to do it, I do not want to fail and make things worse. 

As it happens, I chickened out because of my fear of heights. And also, because I am not unlike most people who attempt suicide. I don't necessarily want to die, I just want the pain to end. But the pain never ends, or so it seems. Fortunately, a person I never even met in person (Facebook friend) suggested I call 211. I looked it up online and recognized one of the resources listed for help. I am now getting help but so many other people are not so lucky. If I had health insurance, this would never have gotten this far because I'd have been monitored by my primary care doctor, or, failing that, would have been able to go to a covered treatment service. Without it, getting help before I succeeded at ending my life was a shot in the dark. How many people will have their shots in the dark miss and thus end their lives?  This is what the Republicans in Congress would have us live with as they continually attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. They are SO heartless, they do not care if hundreds of thousands of people end up committing suicide because they have no health care. Or that many more will be homeless because of their untreated mental illness...What IS this country becoming that those who are elected to represent ALL the people ignore the pain of the "least of these"?  

So when you think about health care and health care reform, please do not forget about mental health.

Republican Pharisees

I find it fascinating that a government body (The US House of Representatives) which meets for a maximum of 4 days per week (more usually 3 1/2 T-Th) can sit and debate taking away affordable health care from the American people but it has not, in 1 1/2 years, acted to create ONE American job. The Republicans spent all day debating the repeal of the AHCA, which has just been declared to be constitutional by the US Supreme Court. They sit and they waste time while REAL people are REALLY hurting in this country! They allow the CROOKS (banks) of this country to accrue TRILLIONS of dollars while not ONE of them has been jailed for destroying the nation's economy. They sit there and insist that the nation's wealthiest people need their tax cuts while they equally insist on paying for those tax cuts on the backs of the poor. 

The Republicans often identify as conservative Christians. They can call themselves anything they like but their ideology is the furthest thing from any of the teachings of Jesus. They ARE, however, pretty much right in line with those of the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus' day. If Jesus were here today, based on the words in red in the New Testament (and the Prophets in the Old), He would condemn the GOP in the strongest possible terms, especially the ones who profess to follow Him. The Biblical record is clear: G-d Judges those who oppress the widowed, the poor and the sick and imprisoned. If those in the Republican party and the 1% who call themselves Christians do not repent and turn away from evildoing they WILL be Judged. Count on it. This IS the Word of G-d (Isaiah through John).

P.S I am NOT the agent of Judgement nor is anyone I know or do not know. Judgement usually comes in the form of the consequences of our own actions, not at the hand of someone else. 

Ad Hominid

I have been thinking about health care as a human right lately. What I keep returning to is the question of how much better our ancient ancestors probably treated each other in terms of access to "health care". Granted, technology is much different, but do you think early humans denied care to any member of their clan because they couldn't pay? How much have we truly "advanced" as a species?