As a college student at the University of Colorado during the 1960’s, Ellen Silverman remembers, she had to walk miles to get to the family planning clinic. There was no bus to catch and she had no money for the taxi. Hours earlier she had called a social worker, looking for affordable birth control.
“Are you pregnant?”, the social worker asked. “No”, she replied hesitantly, wondering why the social worker had asked her that question. “Good,” he said, and then quickly told her to jot down the number of a nurse to visit on the far end of town. She thanked him and hung up the phone. Why so secret?, she thought.
As you may have guessed, Ellen was uninsured. After college, the military, and raising two beautiful sons, Ellen has all the insurance she needs. Her family, her career, her life may not have been the same if she didn’t happen to find that social worker, kind enough to give her the number of a nurse willing to help her.
“If I had not been able to get the birth control I needed and then become pregnant, society would have let me down. I would have been an unwed mother on welfare,” she said. Everything about that day seemed so hush-hush to Ellen, and today she still finds access to women’s wellness services provided under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to be somewhat hush-hush.
“We need to make things more public,” she said firmly over the phone. With increased access to women’s reproductive services, she contends, women in need have a right to know what’s available to them and readily get the services they demand. Ellen is not alone when she stresses the need more education about the existing health services for women and potential improvements to those services as the ACA is fully implemented. She, like many other concerned women, envision a future when women don’t have to feel isolated from the services they need.
As a recent college graduate, Michael Pagano is grateful for being allowed to stay on his family’s insurance, thanks to the Affordable Care Act.
I tore my medial collateral ligament in my elbow pitching in college. I had been on a path to be signed to a professional contract after school. Once I graduated, the pain was intolerable and I assumed my baseball career was over. I was so blessed to have my family’s insurance cover my surgical costs so that my arm could be fixed and I wouldn’t have to suffer daily with normal tasks most take for granted. Obamacare provided that opportunity for me to heal and have a better quality of life. For me personally, it has given me new life to play again, as I am currently pitching at the semi-professional level and my arm has never felt better. My life wouldn’t be the same without this and I would most likely be on a pain killer regimen for a long time. I am so grateful.
“Present specific aspects of the current insurance system that is failing the middle classs (e.g, preexisting conditions, high deductibles, people afraid of making a job change because they will lose their insurance coverage)” – Herndon Alliance
While searching for insurance, after reviewing my employer’s coverage,I decided it would be better if I could find my own insurance. The plan through my employer was sub-par and I figured I could find more adequate coverage. So I began calling around, and I learned in the state of Kentucky there are only three companies (at the time) that provided insurance. They were Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Aetna, and Humana.
Prior to college I was covered by my mother’s health insurance plan. Upon enrolling in college I was covered in part by my school plan and in part by my mother’s (visual and dental), the benefits of the latter having decreased some with various employment transitions for her. It would be nice if one plan could cover our needs, but the mixing has made more sense.
As a college student at the University of Colorado during the 1960’s, Ellen Silverman remembers, she had to walk miles to get to the family planning clinic. There was no bus to catch and she had no money for the taxi. Hours earlier she had called a social worker, looking for affordable birth control.
