FLORIDA VOICES: With no health coverage, too many Floridians risk their lives

Early one morning, my surgical team prepped a sterile procedure room and anxiously waited to receive a patient for emergency kidney stone removal. Studying her test results, we saw an infection fermenting behind the stone.

The calcification and invading bacteria were rapidly destroying her kidney. Imminently, sepsis and kidney failure would threaten her life. We could fix her. But the procedure time came and went without the patient.

A couple years ago, Brittany (real name withheld) took an early retirement at the age of 60 and U-hauled back to Florida to care for her ailing mother. The work of lifting, bathing, combing hair, shopping and listening depended on Brittany's strong back, gentle touch and kind heart. When the dull throb of an aching back turned to lancinating pain, she knew something was seriously wrong.

Asking for help in Florida requires health insurance or running the risk of financial ruin. Not yet old enough for Medicare and forced to choose between family or a paying job, Brittany and millions of other Floridians are compelled by love and morality to choose caring for their parents, spouse, children, sisters, brothers and combinations thereof.

Without a paying job or even at minimum wage, the cost of health insurance in Florida is too high among the many costs of living. Over 2.5 million Floridians go without health insurance and hope that problems like backaches don't escalate into something far worse.

For years, Brittany watched a doctor carefully listen to her mother's heart, lungs and abdomen, grunting approvingly or disapprovingly after each organ the way a tired parent looks after children. From across the room, the irony was not lost on Brittany, whose searing pain rippled from her back downward, upward, sideways and yet just out of reach from help.

She learned to endure the passing of multiple kidney stones, each time a physical triumph but also a vindicated bet that avoided bankruptcy. However, Brittany's most recent stone was a craggy boulder radiating fever spikes.

Most other states don't suffer as bad. Florida is in a minority of states where its elected policy-makers have yet to embrace the wisdom of protecting and promoting the health of all its citizens by providing access to health care through the expansion of Medicaid. Putting gamesmanship above state fitness, Florida state politicians deflect millions of its citizens' federal tax dollars to other states.

In the 37 other states that have accepted Florida's tax dollars, increasing access to health care has led to better health, including improvements in infant and maternal mortality. But just as importantly, it has brought economic stability to patients and reduced not only medical bankruptcy but also predatory loan lending.

The entrenched stubbornness of Florida politicians on this issue has led Florida citizens to rise up with ballot initiative No. 18-16, which demands that Florida accept its citizens' federal tax dollars and provide access to health care via Medicaid for Brittany and 800,000 other Floridians.

To date, over 80,000 Floridians have signed the petition, which has triggered a judicial and fiscal impact review from the state Supreme Court. However, to appear on the November 2020 ballot, another 685,000 signatures are required by February 2020.

Many years from now, while volunteering at a nursing home, the perfume of baby powder, betadine and coffee will remind Brittany of her time in the hospital when her kidney stone was emergently removed. Her discounted payment plan will have been paid off. And she will have survived long enough for the freedom of life that comes with Medicare coverage.

While combing a resident's silver hair, Brittany will remember the time she risked her life in Florida to love and honor her mother. To honor Brittany and the hundreds of thousands of Floridians risking their lives, join the citizen petition at HealthyFlorida.org.

Cogle and Enneking are physicians in Gainesville. They wrote this for The Gainesville Sun.

___

(c)2019 The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla.

Visit The News-Journal, Daytona Beach, Fla. at www.news-journalonline.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.