What Do Republicans Care After Babies Are Born
When you're having a baby, there are certain things you exercise to set up. You stock up on diapers, assemble a crib, and read parenting books. Maybe you tour a birth eye, or decide on a stroller. Simply then in that location are the things you're never prepared for. And in the wake of Senate Republicans' cruel new health plan that targets the most vulnerable Americans, families will have to beginning planning for the unthinkable.
The last thing on my mind when I was 28 weeks pregnant—but back from a summer holiday, but starting to think about painting the plant nursery—was how health coverage was about to shape the residuum of my family unit's life. Then I got ill. Really sick.
To save my life, my daughter was delivered nearly three months early on via emergency c-department. Layla weighed just two pounds ii ounces, and required 'round-the-clock medical care to keep her alive. Almost immediately after she was born, Layla was intubated, a tube threaded through her trachea so a machine could pump oxygen into her lungs. In the 8 weeks she stayed at the neonatal intensive intendance unit, Layla had a collapsed lung, a blood transfusion, a central line 4, and a feeding tube inserted.
I lost count of how many times she stopped animate and turned blueish while I held her, but retrieve the numbness I felt when signing a form allowing doctors to give my tiny, weak baby hurting medication for the invasive but life-saving procedures she would need.
"They told me Layla would accept to be in danger of imminent death for them to cover her."
Whatsoever parent who has had a seriously ill child knows what hell actually is: Information technology'south seeing your infant in pain and being powerless to cease information technology.
In September 2010, a new provision of the Affordable Intendance Deed banned health insurance plans from applying lifetime limits on essential care. Layla was built-in in August. So it was simply sheer luck that our health insurance at the fourth dimension did not have a lifetime cap. If it had, Layla would have blown through that ceiling in the first weeks of her life—we would have gone broke trying to save her.
Care for a premature baby can cost literally millions of dollars, and before the ACA, information technology wasn't uncommon for families with preemies to end up financially devastated. In the new neb, the text of which was just released today, that lifetime cap comes dorsum. I've always wondered how it is that Republicans who call themselves pro-life could back up financial ruin for parents who just want to go along their babies alive.
My family was fortunate in more than ways than one. Many babies who are built-in every bit early on as Layla was have medical issues that last years; some will crave a lifetime of care. Layla left the NICU breathing and eating on her own, and grew up without any lasting developmental delays. To parents with salubrious children, these may seem similar small things—to the states, they were miracles.
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(Image credit: Getty Images)
(Image credit: Getty Images)
(Image credit: Getty Images)
This isn't to say that all was well later she left the infirmary. Layla required early intervention specialists, multiple cardiologist visits, and careful preventative care. Preemies are at high risk for respiratory infections because of their underdeveloped lungs, for example; the nigh dangerous is Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), which Layla's pediatrician gave her a special, but expensive, vaccine for.
Not long subsequently, we moved to a new city and my husband took a new job. But our new insurance provider refused to embrace the medication: five shots that we were told would cost u.s.a. $four,000 each. Nosotros couldn't afford it, and a few weeks later Layla ended up in the hospital with, of course, RSV.
I called the insurance company again, and told them how sick she was. I begged. They told me Layla would have to be in danger of imminent death for them to encompass her. Drastic, I called Layla's old pediatrician in New York, who was then concerned that he had me drive Layla there and gave her the shot himself. Nosotros did this every month—drove from Boston to New York to get my sick child a shot that she needed simply we couldn't beget.
"Any parent who has had a seriously ill kid knows what hell really is: It'due south seeing your infant in pain and being powerless to stop it."
Once once again, we were lucky—we had a doctor willing to get to great lengths to assistance his patient. We had the ability to drive out of state every month. How many ill children are getting sicker considering we accept the ability to help them only don't?
Today my daughter is a healthy, happy six year old. But what happened in those kickoff months and years of her life changed my family unit forever. We won't accept more children; the take chances to my life and wellness is too great (however another reason the birth control mandate is so important) and I never want to put some other child through what Layla suffered.
Simply as Republicans endeavor to defend their health plan, I want them to respond for their hypocrisy. I want them to tell parents similar me why our children's intendance is expendable—why their lives don't affair. I want the lies and the equivocation to stop. About of all, I desire babies like my daughter to live. The question I want them to answer is: Do they?
Jessica Valenti is a contributing editor to MarieClaire.com—read her weekly column here .
Source: https://www.marieclaire.com/politics/news/a27858/senate-republicans-insurance-bill-harms-children/
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