In 1986, I left a job I loved for one I hated.

I had been desperately sick

for seven years, with medical bills no one could possibly cover. But I was
approaching the dreaded age of 25, when I would be forced off of my
parents insurance policy. Everyone knew, without insurance, I would die. I
was frequently hospitalized. My treatments were very expensive. But the job
I loved offered no insurance. The one I hated did.
This was the second time insurance chose the direction of my life. I
applied for the job of my dreams a year before. The boss told me he wanted
to hire me, but theirs was a small company. They already had a person with
high medical costs on salary. If they hired me, he said, their insurer would
drop them. Insurance companies could do that back then.
But with the job I hated, I thought I was safe. Then I found out, even
the group policy had a preexisting condition clause: I would not be insured
for nine months. I could not stay. I would go bankrupt. And so, I went to find
another job. All I wanted was insurance. It didnt matter the job. Insurance
would decide my career.
I had been a political writer at CBS, an associate editor at National
Journal. Very successful at my age. But I only had a few weeks until I was
uninsured. I begged a friend at the New York Times to help me. He offered to
help me land a position as a copy boy. It was a terrible job, he knew, but it
had insurance. At first, I was turned down for the job I was way too
overqualified, the HR person said. But my friend intervened and, after years
of personal success, I agreed to take a job fetching peoples coffee.
There was a two-week period before I began my job when I was
completely uncovered. I ended up hospitalized. By the time I was conscious, I
had rung up a bill in excess of $10,000. That was almost half my expected
full-year salary. I called my parents, in tears. I didnt know what to do. They
told me they would take care of it.
Nothing was more depressing than having to have gived up everything
for insurance, to take a job where everyone was younger than me, everyone
was far less experienced than me. And I knew, if I lost my job, I would lose
my insurance. And if I lost my insurance, I could die. So I worked seven
days a week, 12-18 hours a day. If nothing else, that helped me believe I
would not be fired from my lousy job. But it also gave me the chance to write
for various sections of the paper. I would do my copy boy job eight hours a
day, then start reporting and writing. This went on for two years no
vacations, no break, terrified every day.
Then, I was offered a junior reporters job at the Times. One-year
tryout. I worked almost every day. I rarely left the office. I knew the stakes.
For me, this wasnt about being a reporter. This was about keeping my
insurance.
In my late 20s, I married. My wife is a doctor. At that point, I had
greater freedom. Even if I lost my job, I could be on her insurance. Because
of that freedom, I began to write books. If the Times got mad at me for it, it
would be ok. But still, I could never shake the belief that I could never say no.
I took every assignment. I did not take book leaves. We rarely vacationed.
 I finally started to relax around 2008. I had never lost insurance for 12
years. Then, a miracle: the rules keeping people with preexisting conditions
from being insured were ended under ACA. I listened to blowhards like Rush
Limbaugh rage that people like me and people with asthma and cancer and
cystic fibrosis were leeches, demanding charity. It amazed me how stupid
he and his followers were, not understanding that, without private insurance,
people like me would all be on government disability. We would have to stop
working in order to survive. People were instilled with rage about a topic they
didnt even understand.
No matter. I knew I would never have to face that problem again. More
important, I knew the millions and millions of others like me young kids,
middle aged, whatever would never again be forced to make decisions
about their lives giving up their dreams solely for the insurance. I would hear
every day from my wife about people who came to her office in horrible
medical shape, people who had gone without treatment or sought their
medical care at emergency rooms. People who could only get care in the ER
rang up giant medical bills, so expensive no one could pay them. And so the
taxpayers picked up the cost. Now, those same people were getting care
from my wife with insurance they purchased. Opponents raged about their
taxes paying for the subsidies, so ignorant they had no idea their taxes had
been paying for the far more expensive emergency room care before.
Last week, the House passed a bill that would push everyone with
preexisting conditions back into the same situation. The representatives
billowed and cooed that high-risk pools would protect us, fooling the same
uneducated ones who didnt know they paid for the uninsured. High risk
pools had been tried before. They failed. But these members of congress
probably didnt even know that. They didnt care enough to hold hearings to
find out whether high-risk pools would work. They didnt wait to find out how
many people would lose their insurance. They had to rush it through. Then
they cheered for themselves.
Meanwhile, those of us with preexisting conditions were plunged back
into fear. Foundations for people with chronic diseases began receiving
phone calls from panicked people. My wife and I reviewed our options if this
bill became law. We are middle aged now, which presented new issues. She
is four years older than me. She hits retirement age in five years. If she
retired and was on Medicare, I would be clinging to a slender thread to keep
my insurance. I could never write another book. It would be too dangerous.
My wife said she would work until she was almost 70 to keep me safe. Guilt
overwhelmed me. She was born in Britain, and we discussed her citizenship
and, if necessary, we could move there if I lost my coverage. We would have
to burn through our savings for a long time, but eventually I might be able to
get onto national health insurance.
But I dont want to leave America. I dont want my wife to work until
shes almost 70. I dont want to be guilty. And most important, I dont want
all the other people with preexisting conditions to be forced to make their life
decisions based on where they can get group insurance. Or worse, to not be
able to obtain group insurance, be denied private insurance and die.
I watched Fox News. They giggled and laughed that people were being
hysterical about preexisting conditions. There were high-risk pools, they
sneered, that states could participate in unless they didnt want to. I watched
the clip, over and over, of those self-congratulatory members of Congress,
high-fiving and smiling, as I knew the situation at my house was playing out
at millions of houses where talking points and rationalizations didnt change
the realities of what we would face. I commented about how terrible this was.
And then I saw comments from people deriding those with preexisting
conditions as wanting charity.
I thought of members of Congress who wanted prisons as brutal as
possible, until they themselves were jailed; then, they became advocates for
prison reform. I thought of the ones who screamed about gays until their
child came out, then they became tolerant. I thought about the members of
Congress who happily sent other peoples children off to fight in Vietnam,
while getting their own kids deferments and spots in the National Guard or
reserves, making sure they wouldnt see battle. And then I thought of the
child whose parents home I visited, who told me of their boy dying of
suffocation in his mothers arms as they rushed to the hospital. They hadnt
been able to afford his inhaler that week. They had no insurance. They
planned to buy it the week that followed. Their son died two days after they
decided to take the risk.
And the members of Congress smiled and high-fived.
More peoples children would die. And the members of Congress smiled
and high-fived. People would be forced to take jobs they did not want or
marry people they did not love. And the members of Congress smiled and
high-fived. For millions, every day would be terrifying as they wondered if
they would they run up bills that day that would bankrupt them or would
they be unable to get treatment? Would they live through the week? And the
members of Congress smiled and high-fived.
My anger exploded. I wanted them to feel the consequences of what
they thought was so wonderful. Why should they be exempt from the
damage they would inflict on others from their vote, votes they cast with so
little concern about others that they didnt hold hearings to find out what
damage they might cause?
And so I tweeted, As one with a preexisting condition, I hope every
GOPr who voted for Trumpcare get a long-term condition, and die.
Harsh? You bet. I wanted the words to be blunt, to lay out the reality of
what real people would face, people who didnt have the ability of members
of Congress to avoid the consequences they voted to inflict on real people.
Conservatives broke out the fainting couches. I was wishing
Republicans to die, they moaned. I forgot we live in an era where fools will
interpret it the way they are told. One of the propagandists at the Daily
Caller, after emailing me for comment at 3:00 in the morning, posted a story
proclaiming I wanted my political opponents to die. And the conservative
trolls descended, screaming for my death.
I remain angry. I remember the tears of that woman whose son died in
her arms. I remember my struggles. I remembered my fears. I remembered
the fears of so many others I have spoken to over the years who struggled
with preexisting conditions.
I deleted the tweet. Apparently, confronting people with the reality of
what they have chosen is just too inappropriate. Voting to let people die is
fine, rubbing the fact that they voted to do that is just wrong.
Do I regret what I said? No. I want those words to sink in. My tweet
wont kill anyone. But the vote from those members of Congress will.
And if they are not forced to confront what they are doing, they will just
keep smiling and high-fiving.