One sister died, another hangs on with Obamacare

It isn’t every day I have reason to admit I wept on the office voicemail of the speaker of the House. But I did.

My oldest sister is dead ( 2013), from colon cancer. No Affordable Care Act/ Obamacare, no screening. My youngest sister lives despite ovarian cancer. Her Obamacare meant screening, surgery and treatment. It’s a hard story to tell to a machine.

My sister Sherry worked for 22 years at the Rock Island Arsenal. She was one of the first women to graduate from its apprenticeship program as a machinist. She was laid off in 1999, less than a year before full retirement eligibility.

Sherry received Medicare Part A in 2008, nearly 10 years after her layoff. A year later, she received Part B, which covers preventive services. In 2010, her cancer was found and staged as IIIb with an aggressive tumor. Our family cancer history mandates screening at 50. She would have had access under the ACA, which President Obama signed into law in 2010 but didn’t go live until a few years later.

She had to either leave the care facility or sell her home to pay. She chose to go home, so her four siblings pitched in to run the world’s smallest hospice house.

Sherry died at 60 because she lived in a country that treats medical insurance as a business, thus reducing health care to the status of a commodity. Its repercussions run far beyond anything comparable to iPhones, purses or Xboxes. People don’t die without those. People without health care die. People without timely preventative care die horribly.

My youngest sister, Mary, is shaken by the “repeal and replace” rhetoric coming out of Washington now. It’s avid and sharp, punctuated by the refrain “elections have consequences.” You don’t need to tell her that. She is under an oncologist’s care. Now, along with fears of recurrence, she fears loss of coverage.

Mary called her congressman’s office. The staffer seemed surprised. They hadn’t heard a lot of opposition to repeal in her western Illinois district yet. The staffer stammered and assured her they weren’t going to let her go without coverage.

It’s impossible to believe reassurances at this point. Republicans are so bright- eyed with victory, ebullient about tearing down a thing that has saved lives and money. Their supporters are only now realizing the Affordable Care Act is in fact Obamacare. On social media, they say: I’ll be fine. They’re repealing Obamacare. I’m covered by the ACA.

One of the grim tasks in the wake of a family member’s death is canceling appointments. At the local mental health center, the woman who answered gave a gasp. “We loved Sherry,” she said. “She was an inspiration to us.” I was stunned. I had no idea.

This is what happens when people without money have no backstop in health care. They become shadows on the landscape of their own lives. Think before you consign millions to that doom. History is watching.