Ode to Medicaid

I want to take some time to talk about how much I appreciate Michigan's Medicaid program as it currently stands in 2019.

This isn't a tragic story filled with needs for life-saving care and nights laying awake worried about how I was going to afford my life-saving medication.  I am thankful everyday that I do not have any conditions that require daily medicine or emergency backups.

This is simply a story of an average healthy person, struggling to find full-time employment, who wanted to make sure she was functionally healthy while she was struggling financially.

As a woman, I see my gynecologist every year to make sure that my breasts are lump-free and that my ovaries and uterus are cyst-free.  The timing worked out so that I didn't need a pap smear while I was on Medicaid, but I do stay up to date with that exam as well.

I also visited my gynecologist for a full STD panel (vaginal swab + blood work) between sexual partners to make sure I wasn't putting the next person at risk.

Again, I visited my gynecologist to talk about issues with excessive bleeding - we're talking 40+ days straight of menstruation.  The result is my business but it was definitely necessary to seek medical treatment on that one.

I went to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned for the first time in over nine years.  As a new patient, I also got a full set of X-rays.  Four small holes were discovered in my teeth, so they were filled in.

When I had a random episode of vertigo that was so bad I could barely walk across the hall to the bathroom, I went (having gotten a ride) to urgent care.  Thankfully it was just fluid trapped in my ears after a cold, so I bought some antihistamines.

I got my flu shot and thankfully avoided catching the flu - a bigger challenge for someone working retail during the holidays.

I also got the Hepatitis B vaccine when there was an outbreak traced back to a restaurant I'd dined at and thankfully avoided catching that disease, too.

When I had a cough lingering for a whole week after getting over a cold, I went to urgent care to ensure that it wasn't something more serious.  I was prescribed a nasal spray and an antihistamine - which Medicaid thankfully covered, since even store brands can be $20 or more, and my $10/hour, 16-hour work weeks left me with very little emergency money.

When that cough lasted a full month even with the nasal spray and antihistamines, I finally sought out a GP.  (I hadn't had a regular doctor or an annual physical since I outgrew my pediatrician.)  She gave me the peace of mind that my cough was allergy-related triggered by the cold I'd caught, prescribed me a cough suppressant, and also sent me to the lab for bloodwork to see if I was anemic (related to the excessive menstruation, not the cough).

When a bug bite turned dark purple and red, and had lines of bruise color streaming down towards my ankle, I rushed to urgent care to have it looked at.  Thankfully it wasn't a tick bite or Lyme disease, but a simple infection.  I was prescribed both an antibiotic pill and a cream to treat it.

When frequent headaches and eye fatigue started to set in, I got an eye exam to see if my prescription had changed.  It had, and I would have gotten a new pair of glasses completely covered, except that my exam ended up taking place on the last day of Medicaid coverage before my insurance from my new full-time job started up.

100% of these services and prescriptions were 100% covered for me.  The situations I've laid out took place across almost two years of me being underemployed and underpaid, and thanks to Medicaid, I never had to worry about how I was going to afford any of these office visits or prescriptions.

I guess I have a few main points here:

1) Medicaid is actually good health coverage and I am eternally grateful to the state for supporting me when I was down. 

2) Please do not talk down to or about people who are on Medicaid.  Many of them are people like me - people who are trying desperately to find full-time employment with health benefits, but for reasons that are personal to them have been unsuccessful.  (Bear in mind, too, that some of these people are working 40 or more hours per week, but spread across 2 or more jobs.)

3) Please do not vote Medicaid away.  I can't imagine what I would have done without the coverage that I had in the last 2 years.  Don't do that to people who rely on the system for support.

4) Please don't make the "I don't want MY tax dollars supporting ____!" complaint when it comes to Medicaid.  I mean, I hate that argument in general, but when you're talking about the health and the lives of your fellow statesmen, it's just incomprehensible to me that anyone would complain about contributing 2.9% of their salary for that.  That's less than three cents per dollar.  For every $100 you make, you're contributing only $2.90 towards the people you share a state with to have health insurance.  Please be a compassionate enough person to be okay with that tax.