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Rising Costs
Sue Smith
Doing the right thing has always been important to Sue. That’s why she began working for a union, in 1990. After working there for eight years, Sue suffered a brain aneurysm. Luckily, she survived, made a full recovery and was back at work in three weeks. Sue was thankful, not just for her health, but for the great health insurance provided by her employer. Unfortunately, Sue’s health problems were not over. In 2003 Sue was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She underwent surgery, and in a matter of weeks she was again back at work. Eleven days later she was terminated. Sue was stunned- she had never been disciplined in her thirteen year tenure with the union. She had even been called her boss’ “right hand man” by many fellow workers.
Sue firmly believes that she was fired because her health problems made her a costly employee. Since her employer is self-insured, they bear the cost of employees’ illnesses. Between the aneurysm and tumor and a C-Section in 2000, Sue had indeed cost the organization a significant amount of money. In fact, Sue was listed in a shocks report- a list of the five highest health insurance claims.
Sue filed charges against her employer. She lost her first case, but she is in the process of appealing the decision. This ordeal has left Sue disillusioned. “The opinion just handed down shows me that the courts can toss out any statements they don’t want to deal with, believe untruths, and totally bypass some facts like the timing of the issue.”
Sue’s illness and subsequent termination has had serious economic and medical consequences as well. “I have two strikes against me,” she says, “I was fired from a job, and I have had severe health issues.” She now works as a receptionist, making less than half of what she was making at her old job. She was, however, able to enroll in her current employer’s health insurance. This has been a tremendous relief to Sue, since the insurance plan is enabling her to go in for her first annual exam since she was fired. When Sue was uninsured she simply did not go to the doctor. Sue is not alone in this. In their report, “The Uninsured, A Primer,” the Kaiser Family Foundation reports that the uninsured are “less likely to receive preventative care, are more likely to be hospitalized for avoidable health problems, and are more likely to be diagnosed in the late stages of disease.” This has serious consequences. According to the Institute of Medicine, in 2002, 18,000 uninsured individuals died from treatable conditions.
Sue’s story demonstrates how the current cost of insurance can easily create conflict between employers and employees. Moreover, because it is tied to employment, people like Sue often lose their health insurance when they need it most. But Sue lost much more than that, because of all she has been through, she has lost her confidence as well. “I’ll never know if I lost anything in the second brain surgery. I was only back at my job for five half days and five full days [before I was fired]. I will wonder for the rest of my life if I would have been able to do the work. Every time I make a mistake I question if it’s a result of the surgery.”
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