VOP Front Porch Diaries

Tiffany Nious

Hampton Roads Team

HAMPTON ROADS, VA-This summer  I am community organizing on several issues in Hampton Roads, the main one being health care. I am glad to be doing work around health care because it is an important issue for me.

I have not had health care for most of my life. I have only had coverage for a few years and will likely go without it again. My sister and other members of my family have never had health care. I have seen what it is like to be uninsured with my own family and it is a big reason why I am out in the community working on this issue. It becomes clearer to me every day that we need to change the way our health care system works.

Every day, I am out in the community going door to door talking to people in the community about health care. Most of the people that I talk to would like to see health care reform soon. I speak to a lot of people in the military in the area who have excellent health insurance through the military. Yet even though they are covered, they usually have friends or relatives that are not. They are aware that the system is broken and that they are lucky to have good coverage. Very few people are completely unaware of our broken health care system.

I spoke to a women in Hampton yesterday who was very ill with stomach cysts. She had racked up  $ ½  million medical debt. She was very worried about her debt. She sold her house to pay off her medical bills but she still has $250,000 left to pay. Not only does she have no insurance and her own illness to worry about, her 7 year-old daughter was just denied Medicare.  She wants to know that her daughter is taken care of.  After sharing her story, the first things she asked me about was a public health care plan. She wants to see a public health insurance plan as soon as possible. As a single parent she really needs affordable coverage.  She cannot get health insurance through her job.  She is working hard but cannot afford to buy her own health insurance because she has pre-existing conditions that exclude her from all but the least affordable options. She hopes for her illness to get better and avoids going to the emergency room so that she does not increase her debt.  

Unfortunately, these stories are fairly common out in the community. I hear them all the time. It saddens me that people who work hard cannot afford a basic necessity like health care.  The only positive aspect of hearing these stories every day is that people are fed up and ready for change.  Most of the people I speak with know that our health care system is broken and want to see it fixed.

I would like to see our health care system fixed so that I can not only continue to have my health insurance, but know that my sister, my family and neighbors have health insurance too.