Run Program: Make(Toast)

name-em-shame-em:

wearethe99percent:

I am the 99%.

occupywallst.org

My name is Olivia.  I can’t hold a sign because I’m so little. 

I was born with club feet.  One was so bad, it was nearly upside-down.  My feet have been stretched into place and casted into position every week since I was 3 weeks old.  It really hurts.  I’m 3 and a half months old now, so I’ve done that a lot.  It costs about $500 each time.  (You can see one of my casts peeking out under my dress.)

On March 21, 2012 I had my first surgery, because the stretching wasn’t working.  That cost nearly $9,000, but if my feet don’t get fixed, I’ll never be able to walk.

Medicaid is paying to fix my feet.  My Daddy is a disabled veteran, but his insurance won’t cover my feet.  My Mom is trying to raise my 3 brothers and I while she wracks up student loans getting her college degree, because minimum wage isn’t enough to keep a roof over our heads.

WIC is paying for my formula, because Mom’s milk never came in.  She feels kinda bad about that, but sometimes these things just happen.

I hear that some people want to get rid of Medicaid, the Pell Grant, and WIC, so that the 1% can have even more tax breaks.  Well, I want to be able to walk.  I need to eat.  And my Mom would like to be able to provide for me better someday.  I don’t understand why people want to take that away from me.  What did I do wrong?

Okay first of all:

Now that that’s out of the way, I want to point out another reason why Obama is good for children like Olivia. Before the ACA most insurance companies would refuse to cover Olivia, forcing her parents to pay out of pocket, because being born with club feet is a preexisting condition.

Let’s say this one more time: people who want to repeal Obamacare are arguing that it is fair that even if a family already has an insurance that they pay premiums on, that insurance company should be able to refuse to help their newborn baby who happened to have been born with birth or mental defects. Hey, if Olivia wanted to walk she should have thought of that before she decided to develop club feet.

Furthermore, in the unlikely event that an insurance company would cover Olivia, they would be allowed to claim that they don’t need to pay for her surgeries because she won’t die without them and therefore it is elective (this happened to me with my jaw surgery and my parents have kickass insurance). Or else they’d only pay for one and refuse to pay for any follow ups she might need as she grows older.

Obama thinks that family’s like Olivia’s deserve medical care; he doesn’t think it would be right if Olivia never walked because her parents didn’t have health insurance

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I still just cannot believe - I was honestly in the dark about the true level of lack of healthcare in this nation until about a year ago, when I learned a person dying from cancer can in fact be refused treatment if they can’t pay for it. I grew up on government healthcare, as an Army brat. Everyone deserves healthcare. It is WRONG that money can stand between a person and LIFE.