The White House website has a section that you send a message to the President of the United States.
I am sure he does not see every message that is sent, but I thought I would submit a letter since I can not sleep, and maybe just perhaps the President will see it.
I also thought I would go ahead and share that letter here, so here it is.
Dear Mr. President,
My name is Dallas Brown.
I wanted to take a minute and write you concerning the proposed health care reform.
Let me start by saying that I am not a Democrat, nor a Republican.
I personally do not like the close minded nature to the “other side” that both parties seem to show.
Instead I would consider myself a Constitutionalist or more towards a Libertarian.
As such, I am usually in favor of less government, however when it comes to health care reform I am in favor of anything that will truly fix such a important yet broken system.
If you would allow I would like to explain my circumstances to help better explain how imperative it is that something is done, and fast!
My son, Tyler, now 4 years-old, was born 3 months early at 25 weeks gestation.
He weighed under 2 pounds.
As a result of being so early, he had to have heart surgery the day after being born and he had what is called a brain bleed, which is basically a stroke.
Tyler spent the next 3 months in the hospital and running up a medical bill of around 1 Million dollars.
As a result of the brain bleed, part of the brain was killed.
It also resulted in Spinal fluid not being to drain correctly so he had to receive a Shunt, which allows the Spinal fluid to drain from his brain into his stomach.
In 4 years of life Tyler has had heart surgery, eye surgery, and about 7 brain/head surgeries including a total skull reconstructions.
Tyler has Cerebral Palsy as a result of the brain that was killed off.
He walks with a major limp, and does not talk, however he is mentally very aware and smart.
However, he is like a 1 year-old in a 4 year-old body.
All of that being said….
I am self employed as a Apple Mac and iPhone software developer, and my family and I would qualify as “Middle Class”.
With being self employed we are desperately searching for a health insurance plan, however the second any of the private health insurance companies look at my son, we are immediately rejected. Even the so called “non-profit” companies reject us, some times before even submitting an application.
Since we are middle class citizens we do not qualify for any of the current government plans because we “make too much money.”
We are willing an trying to pay upwards of $600+ a month for health insurance, yet no one will accept us.
This means that if my son gets sick we can’t take him to his pediatrician unless we can afford to pay the entire bill upfront.
If he has another shunt failure (which he has had 4 of) the hospital will only do what they are required by law to due, and “make sure he is stable”, which means he will not receive the care he desperately needs, and would most likely die.
That entire hospital visit will be billed to us and with being upwards of $10K for a shunt failure, we would be unable to pay.
(We received many bills during Tyler’s stay in the hospital, yet the kicker was a Single bill of Over $100K that we received)
So here we are, Middle Class Americans, willing to pay extreme rates if only we could get health insurance, and all because of a medical condition that my son did not ask for, and makes everyday already more difficult than normal.
I apologize for the length of this message, however I hope it helps show how desperately we need some kind of health care reform and soon.
There have been talks about things like just capping the amount someone can sue a doctor for malpractice.
The problem with something like this, is that while it may change some things, it would not help someone like me, as the health insurance companies would still refuse to give us coverage.
Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to read this letter.
Please feel free to use Tyler’s story if you think it would help.
Sincerely,
-Dallas Brown
