The rising cost of insurance has become a crisis in Kentuckiana, with more and more families unable to afford coverage of any kind, and it's affecting millions of Americans. As WAVE 3's Anne Marshall reports, lack of insurance coverage has meant severe consequences for one local working class family.
In New Castle, Kentucky, Eileen Morgan and cars go hand in hand -- she works in an automotive repair shop. But 28 years ago, she wanted a certain mechanic to work on her car whether or not it needed it.
"I'd make excuses to go out there," Eileen says.
And soon Clay Morgan's most frequent customer became his constant companion -- and mother to his three kids.
She said Clay "was a joker, a kidder."
He was also a father who loved his family "until he got sick he had problems, then he was kind of pushing us away."
If life's basic building blocks are health and happiness, without one, the other can quickly crumble.
"It's been a hard battle," Eileen says.
Starting in 2002, Clay battled heart problems, cancer, and a car wreck requiring two neck surgeries. In September of 2005, the state took the family off Medicaid, saying their income was too high -- but it wasn't enough to pay for private insurance.
"Because of our medical problems, either people just flat wouldn't cover us, or the rates were just so high, it was just like, 'Wow! We can't afford this.'"
The family had to declare bankruptcy due to medical bills, and a short time later Clay developed a lump on his neck.
"He said he just knew it was cancer," Eileen says. "But we didn't have the money and he knew we didn't have the money, and I tried to get him to go to the doctor. I said 'we'll find a way.' But he wouldn't go."
Weighing the price of living and the cost of leaving, caught up to the 45-year-old on January 20, 2006. "We have a safe in our home," Eileen recalls. He asked me to open it. And he said 'there's a cat out there bothering me.' He goes: 'I'm just going to go shoot it.' And the next thing I knew ... he killed himself."
Eileen knows life comes with no guarantees, yet she still wonders if insurance would have helped.
"When someone is in a lot of pain, and things like that, they need help and I think if my husband could have got proper medical attention, he'd still be here."
Dr. Wayne Tuckson, a colo-rectal surgeon, says he's seen a large increase in the under-insured and uninsured. "If you ask me, we need to be working towards a universal health care plan," he says.
Right now, more than a half-million Kentuckians and 700,000 in Indiana are without health insurance.
Older working adults make up 48 percent of that group in Kentucky, and many in the medical profession are pushing for a national health insurance program where all Americans get the same coverage.
"Let's face it: in the United States, we have a 2-tier health care system," Tuckson says.
Tuckson claims Medicaid patients often don't get seen because reimbursements to doctors are so low. Therefore, few doctors will take them.
In Eileen's case, that meant Clay never saw a pain specialist. In other cases, patients are choosing to skip care altogether, eventually ending up in the ERs of hospitals that must provide care regardless of whether the patient is insured.
"We're now getting them at the end of their disease process," Tuckson says, "when we have to do a whole lot more to try to take care of them. And there's nobody to bear the cost. Therefore, when there's nobody to bear the cost, we all bear the cost."
State Rep. Bob DeWeese, R-Louisville, a former general surgeon, says the health care system needs to be fixed, not abandoned. He believes each state should focus on incentives for patients to get preventative care.
"I do not think nationalizing our health care system or socializing or going to the Canadian system is the route to go," DeWeese says. He says costs need to be controlled before the federal government steps in.
The Morgans are without insurance again, and they still have about $30,000 in medical bills to pay, so Eileen's $300 prescription to treat her diabetes, and her son's physical therapy for a baseball injury, are this month's maybes.
Still, even compared to all the illness she has face over the last four years, it's the next few alone Eileen knows will hurt most. "It's been hard, but we're managing. Mom's doing better than she was, let's put it that way. I just try to keep going, take it one day at a time and keep going."
If you are one of the thousands of Kentuckians without health insurance, there is an organization that can provide health care. It is called Health Kentucky. For more information, call 866-284-5808.
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