“Every time my children do something remotely fun and risky, I’m envisioning in my head the horrible medical problems” that might ensue, she said. They wear helmets on the slopes, at least.
“I live in a constant state of fear,” Whitman said.
Tara Sullivan’s flu this winter was bad enough that her friends at the small law firm where she works offered to pay for her to see a doctor, since she doesn’t have insurance.
Sullivan, 58, declined their help, but she had a bad cough, tightness in her chest, fever and chills. So in February she went to the emergency room at Marietta Memorial Hospital, across the Ohio River from where she lives in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Her flu had turned into pneumonia, and filling prescriptions for antibiotics, steroids and an inhaler cost her about $250 at Walmart. She also got a $45 bill for a chest x-ray, which she hasn’t paid yet, and she isn’t sure what she might owe for the rest of the hospital visit.
Her job as a legal assistant pays her about $28,000 a year — $1,800 a month in take-home pay. Last fall she looked for an Obamacare plan, and saw premiums that would have cost her around $250 to $300 per month.
“We don’t have enough money to go out to eat, or take my grandchildren to the movies, much less pay for health insurance,” Sullivan said.
Behind on her gas bill, Sullivan got a disconnect notice in January. The money she would have used to pay it went to her prescriptions instead. The late-winter temperature in Parkersburg often drops into the teens overnight, well below freezing. She borrowed from a friend to make the utility payment, keeping the heat, hot water, and cooking gas on.
“I’m just constantly catching up,” Sullivan said.
Her father died recently from cancer, and mother her had it too before she died. Sullivan worries about the same thing, and was able to get a free breast-cancer screening a few months ago from a clinic in town.