Kathy Keitkamp, Nurse, Weybridge
Once again, my husband and I are without health insurance. We are waiting to hear if we qualify for Green Mountain Care or any other program. My husband, a self-employed contractor, who had been sub-contracting, was laid off. He is just beginning to work again, and hopefully build back his previous business. We had self-paid our insurance, because of my health issues. I have a re-current cancer. When my husband was laid off we no longer could pay for the health insurance. Now, we feel as if we wasted our money, since we ended up without being able to afford health insurance again.
January of 20003, I was diagnosed with Bladder Cancer. I consider myself lucky, because I had complained of symptoms for six years, and I still have a bladder. The reality is that Bladder Cancer is a chronic cancer, and the most expensive over the course of a lifetime. Presently, I am on a watch for another cancer, which hopefully the physicians will clear me of this concern. I will be re-evaluated in February.
When I was diagnosed I had a job that included health insurance, but then the business closed. My husband and I started paying out of our pocket, to make sure that I had a way to receive health care. My husband is a self-employed carpenter who was recently laid off from sub-contracting for a bigger company. We can no longer pay the Insurance premiums which is now over $900.00. Because we paid for our own insurance, we have to wait one year before we will qualify for Green Mountain Health Care. My appointment will be in February I will need to pay $600.00, while my insurance company was able to negotiate a fee of $400, and change.
February will be an expensive month, for my husband and myself. But since we have been here before- when we raised our children we went 14 years with out health insurance. We have paid for having babies, a tonsillectomy and all the routine and normal health visits for our children during those years. Hopefully this month I will finish paying off the co-pay for my cat scan from July 2008, then I will start paying the co-pay for my surgery of November 2008. I can’t understand the reason why the United States of America, and the state of Vermont, would deny me health care insurance. After all I am a good, honest and hard working citizen.