Hi, my name is Chris and I have been pretty healthy most of my life. I also pretty much didn’t go to doctors. In fact, unlike many people I know, I was never one to go to an ER or doctor anytime something minor was happening.

I always worked and accordingly had health care insurance which was partially provided by my employer plus a small amount that was taken out of every paycheck. Unfortunately, I had an accident on my job which forced me to apply for workman’s compensation when a funny thing happened. Trying to avoid the cost of workman’s comp, my employer terminated me. Now I have an attorney and, well, you know the rest. In the meantime, now I have no health insurance and little money. 

I have always felt this country is a country of the haves and have-nots and that health care follows the money.

While I had insurance, going to a doctor for routine checkups and preventative care would cost me money and so, watching my experneses and otherwise feeling healthy, I never really went for checkups or annual physicals.

Then, I had a heart attack. It happened at home and was considered a so called “mild,” heart attack. Anyway, I was taken to St. Vincent Charity Hospital where I came under the care of a cardiologist. 

While she found the usual, blockage plus high bad cholesterol, low good cholesterol, I now know that if I had been having regular checkups, they could have seen this coming and it could have been avoided. But you know the story. Health care insurance with high deductibles and co-pays that cost just don’t encourage real preventative medicine as in regular or frequent visits to the doctor. 

My doctors basic direction has been diet and exercise which I follow. One thing though…even though I had a heart attack, St. Vincent Charity released me after only two days and I can’t help but believe that I should have been in there longer only they wanted the bed for a new patient. Though my insurance was OK, if it was better, who knows?

But now that I don’t have insurance, things have changed. yes, there are places I can go, but it is just not as good.

For example, I have had upper and lower dentures for a long time and lost them. I was over at my brothers, had taken them out and someone accidentally threw them away. They were in a napkin So, without insurance I had to go to a place where I have to wait on them and I have been waiting a long time. In the meantime, I live, basically, without teeth, cut up my food real good. But the big thing is that it really embarrasses my wife. when she introduces me to a friend she wants me to hide my mouth. It embarrasses me too even though I have earned to be able to hide it pretty good. It is just not a fun thing to live with. But you do what you gotta do.