The difference that two months makes

[cyan_blue]

My friend Arnold recently moved from California to Oregon. He'd gone through a breakup with his partner of 10 years, he'd just been laid off from work, and his cat had just died. Not much left for him in San Diego.

So in November, he packed up and headed home to Portland - where his family is, and where most of his friends are.

And when he got settled in, he went to the local AIDS resource center to apply for health benefits there... to be told that services for people with HIV were being drastically reduced, and that he wouldn't be covered for the meds that he'd been taking for so long.

His meds cost upwards of $10K. Per month.

So he finished off the last of his two months supply of meds from California, and settled in to wait. He had a job, and he would qualify for health insurance in a couple of months, and he figured he'd just hang in there 'til that kicked in.

But without his meds, he got sick. So sick that he missed many days of work. Fortunately, his employer is a relative and didn't fire him - but still this led to a drastic decrease in his income. So he cut down on expenses. Like food, which he was having trouble keeping down anyway. And he got sicker. And of course he didn't want to be a burden to anyone, so he didn't mention to anyone that he was getting sicker. Until 3 weeks ago, when it started becoming visibly obvious to his loved ones that something was wrong, and we made sure that he was taken care of in various ways.

His health insurance finally kicked in, and he went to the doctor. And in the process, he got his blood workup results back. And reading them, I could cry.

Before he left California, his T cell count was in the 700's, and his viral load was undetectable - and his numbers had been that way for years. His health couldn't exactly be called good, but it was stable. He was able to hold down a job.

After being off his meds for a mere 2 months, his T cell count is now barely above 200, and his viral load is up at 22,000. I shudder to think where his numbers would have been if there had been any more of a delay in his getting services.

He's back on meds now, praise be. Now comes the wait to find out whether his old meds will still work, or whether he has to go through a variety of cocktails to find the right ones.

I hope the people up there in the government who are making budget cutting decisions realize that they aren't just cutting numbers - they are cutting lives.

Comments

[adamchristopher.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is scary and sad. And pretty maddening. I hope he quickly regains his strength. And his T cell count.

[danaeris.livejournal.com]

He will be in my thoughts.

This is yet another reason why I feel so strongly about universal health care. Things like this don't have to happen.

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Sadly, though I'd like to see universal health care too, it can be hard for UHC programs to cover expensive drugs. It might not help much.

[auros]

Even the Canadian system is better than the US. My former roommate DEC went home to Canada for treatment of pancreatic cancer, because he wouldn't have been able to get the treatment in CA without taking on insane amounts of debt.

[absinthehearts.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the other part of this: He didn't come back to Canada for the treatment because he could get it here for free. He came back because *paying for the treatment as a foreigner* was still going to be less than half the cost of having the treatment in the US. I mean, filling a prescription in California was *five times the cost* of filling it in Canada, assuming an equal currency value.

[housepet.livejournal.com]

This is something I feel so strongly about.

The problem with the politicians making the cuts is that they (likely) don't know anyone personally with the disease. There's still an unconscious prejudice out there that folks that have HIV have somehow 'earned' it, and should have to pay for their mistakes (I've been doing a lot of field research on prejudice lately for my term paper)

Anyhow, the government would rather spend money on troops and such -- rather than for social services.
Jerks.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

It's not _just_ HIV, although I'm sure that's a particularly bad case. Human services in general seem to be drastically underfunded, and I'm convinced part of the reason is this sense some people have that consumers of those services are trash who brought it upon themselves in some way. Since my mom works in child protective services this always made me particularly angry -- how can anyone possibly say that some kids just deserve abuse or neglect?!

[mactavish.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's horrible. :( I hope the damage done by missing meds is mostly recoverable.

[kimuchi.livejournal.com]

That's terrible news. :( I fervently hope his old meds do the trick and his health stabilizes quickly.

[firecat]

[*angry muttering*]

[cortneyofeden.livejournal.com]

Argh. Frigging necessary meds that our country doesn't have a way to provide for those without insurance.

Really hope that at least most of the damage can be made up for. ::hugs to you::

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

No offense, but it was a little short-sighted of Arnold to let his COBRA enrollment expire, or leave the state that was paying for his drugs, without making sure that he would have gap coverage.

The big problem with universal health care is that as newer and more expensive treatments are developed, the cost of providing health care rises faster than any possible funding source. Here in socialist Canada, my provincial government has been reduced to consolidating hospitals, breaking union contracts, and ignoring the results of binding arbitration in order to keep health care costs below 50% of the budget.

What's more important, AIDS drugs for people like Arnold, or rape crisis centers, or having one single "safe house" for street youth under 16 (after their 16th birthday, street kids are supposed to be able to fend for themselves), or having courthouses in remote areas, or legal aid for the poor?

Of course, part of the reason that Canada's health care system is such a budget-breaker is that, unlike any other country in the world, it is truly a single-payer system - all health care of covered classes is provided, free, by the government. In other countries, people have the option of paying extra to get a higher level of service.

I don't have any answers... but the questions aren't as simple as you might think.