Ed. Note: Micah Weinberg submitted this entry for our 2009 Healthcare Blogathon. Prizes include $150 in cash, free tickets to our Annual Gala, and by Sept. 25! Like in the Oscars, You the Reader will then get to choose the winners. More details to come.
My friend TK is a true saint. He has, for the past several years, poured his heart and soul into creating a community clinic in his hometown in northern California. It started out as a free clinic but has recently scraped its way to almost breaking even due to his tireless work of navigating the ridiculously complex process of getting reimbursed for the medical care. It hasn’t been easy. He hasn’t taken a day of vacation in three years.
I’ve been inspired by his efforts and his progress so I was shocked by something that he revealed to me the other day: he doesn’t have health insurance.
He gets free basic care within the clinic but if he were to require a major surgery, he would go bankrupt and the clinic, that provides vital medical care for thousands of people in his community, would go under. This is just another of the hundreds of thousands of examples of people who are living their lives on the brink of financial ruin due to our broken healthcare system. It’s also a clear case of how our failure to guarantee healthcare for all puts our communities at risk. Many of the uninsured aren’t unemployed people but successful small business owners.
The health of our communities depends, quite literally, on healthcare reform. We need to pass comprehensive reform now.
– Micah Weinberg
