My sister died without Obamacare: Column

It isn’t every day I have reason to admit I wept on the office voicemail of the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. But I just did, and you need to know why.

In my defense, a brief synopsis: 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, treatment. It’s a hard story to tell to a machine. It’s a hard story to tell you. But it matters, so I will try.

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 with 65 others, less than a year before full retirement eligibility. This sent her into a spiral of depression that grew debilitating. But Sherry was brave, even up against an aggressive cancer that threw everything at her.

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. Immediately. That’s the way it works in Illinois — they don’t wait until poor sick people die to divest them of assets. She chose to go home. So her four siblings pitched in to run the world’s smallest hospice house in her final days.

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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. Insurance may run as a business here, but health care is no 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 today. The staffer seemed surprised. They’re not hearing a lot of opposition to repeal in her western Illinois district yet. Mary told her story, and Sherry’s, and said she didn’t want to lose health care. The staffer stammered and assured her they weren't going to let her go without coverage. People will be covered, he said.

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 own supporters are only now realizing the Affordable Care Act is in fact Obamacare. You can see them on social media, saying: I’ll be fine. They’re repealing Obamacare. I’m covered by the ACA. Their dismay will only grow.

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One of the grim tasks in the wake of a family member’s death is canceling upcoming appointments. I dialed the local mental health center. The woman who answered gave a gasp when I explained that Sherry had died.

“We loved Sherry here,” she said. “She dealt with so much over the years, but she never let it show. She was an inspiration to us.” I was stunned. I had no idea. Consumed with treatments, worry, and meeting her at ER’s, I had lost sight of my sister’s indomitable, elemental self.

This is what happens when people without money have no backstop in health care. They become shadows on the landscape of their own lives. Even as a preventable disease takes them down. It is a hideous fate. Think before you consign millions of Americans to that doom. Then think again. History is watching. Sherry is watching.

Kim Painter is the Democratic county recorder in Johnson County, Iowa.

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