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US politicsCaroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, set to be nominated as US envoy to AustraliaKennedy, US ambassador to Japan under Obama, was high-profile supporter of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign Joanna Walters and agencies@ More
OpinionUS healthcareLike millions of Americans, I can never leave my spouse. I’ll lose my healthcareJessa CrispinMy access to doctors is tied to my husband – and his access is tied to his employer. Land of the free indeed Fri 23 Jul 2021 06.17 EDTLast modified on Fri 23 Jul 2021 07.03 EDTIt was around the second dose of fentanyl going into my IV bag that I stopped trying to control how much all of this was going to cost. I had been arguing with every decision the caregivers at the emergency room were making – “Is this Cat scan actually necessary or is there another diagnostic tool?” “Is there a cheaper version of this drug you’re giving me?” – and reminding them repeatedly that I was uninsured, but either the opioids in my bloodstream, or the exhaustion of trying to rest in a room next to a woman who, given the sounds she was making, was clearly transforming into a werewolf, forced me to surrender.Why is a 108-year-old resorting to GoFundMe to pay for home care? | Ross BarkanRead moreI walked out of there four years ago alive, yes. And, as the doctors and nurses kept reminding me, if I had waited another 48 hours to discover I didn’t actually have the magical ability to self-diagnose and self-treat serious problems with Google and herbs, I might have gone septic. But all said and done, I was also walking home to a $12,000 bill, which was approximately half of my annual income as a single woman.It took me several years of hardship, contributions from my friends and the assistance of the hospital’s charity program to pay off the $12,000.Then, last month, it started again. I was at home. I turned my head a little, the whole world started sliding away from me, and I crashed to the floor. I tried to crawl back into bed, insisting, “It’ll pass, it’ll pass.” My husband, on the other hand, was raised in a country with compulsory public health coverage, so his first instinct upon something weird happening isn’t to lie down for 48 hours and see if it goes away. He immediately started plotting the route to a hospital on his phone.I was back, but this time I was married. The whole hospital visit cost us $30, including the prescription. Everything was covered by his insurance. That’s when I realized I can never divorce my husband.The first emergency room visit might have been an anomaly – a freak health problem that the nurse explained as “sometimes these things happen”. The intense vertigo was the result of the deterioration of the condition of my ears. It has been a problem since childhood, one left in “let’s wait and see what happens” condition until a weird virus last year – yes, I was the big idiot who caught a debilitating non-coronavirus virus during a coronavirus pandemic – forced me to a doctor, who discovered significant hearing loss and structural damage that will require lifelong treatment and intervention.As a freelance writer who has tried and failed for years now to get a real job with real benefits, the costs of the surgeries and hearing aids and other treatments the doctor sketched out as part of my future would be suffocating. But almost all of it is covered by my husband’s insurance, making my health and ability to access healthcare dependent on his presence in my life.While I convalesced from the virus last year, I watched the discussion about health insurance take over the Democratic primary debates. I had little hope that the bright, sparkly Medicare for All plan championed by candidates like Bernie Sanders would be made reality. But still I despaired of the excuses other candidates made for why they did not support guaranteed coverage for all. It angered me to see Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg and the eventual winner, Joe Biden, defend their plans to largely maintain the status quo – a system in which employment and marriage determine access to healthcare – as though they were protecting our “freedom” to “choose” coverage that was right for us.The coercions built into American social welfare programs limit freedom, not preserve it. People who are not financially independent are forced to maintain ties with family members who might be abusive or violent unless they want to relinquish their housing, healthcare or other forms of support. And as outlined by Melinda Cooper’s Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism, the dismantling of protections like food and financial aid in the 80s and 90s had the express purpose of increasing familial obligations in the name of “duty” and “responsibility”. Single parents seeking public support for their children’s wellbeing now had to first seek assistance through their partners, no matter how fraught or harmful those relationships might be. While politicians spoke of “strengthening families” and repairing the social fabric, one of the consequences of these policy changes was to limit the ability for people to make the basic decisions required to live the lives of their choosing, unless they had the money that in this country is our substitute for freedom.It’s not just unhealthy families we are stuck in: a Gallup poll revealed that one in six Americans stay in jobs they want to leave because they can’t afford to lose their health benefits. Politicians on both sides claim to support innovation and entrepreneurship, but the cost of healthcare is a huge barrier for many, and something that could be easily resolved with a public option. It’s almost as if we believe people who are sick, unlucky or not blessed by inherited resources deserve to have their choices constrained and stay trapped in perilous circumstances. (That last part is a joke. We Americans definitely believe this.)We have a Democrat-led Congress and a Democratic president, yet there is no public option or significant overhaul of our broken health insurance system on the horizon. As a result, when my husband got offered his dream job at an emerging non-profit startup, one so new that when the offer was made they could not yet offer health benefits, he hesitated. There would be a gap in coverage, of indeterminate length, and there was still that $12,000 emergency room visit in recent memory.In the end, simply by luck, the startup found a way to enroll employees in a health program that left us with only a one-month gap in coverage. I am lucky to be married to someone I like, who I am not afraid of, who I do not want to leave. This hasn’t always been the case for women in my family, or even myself in my 20s. For now, and for the foreseeable future, my access to doctors is tied to my partner, and his to his employer. Land of the free indeed.
Jessa Crispin is a Guardian US columnist
TopicsUS healthcareOpinionUS politicsHealth insuranceHealthcare industryInsurance industryHealthcommentReuse this content More
Rugby unionSay it’s so, Joe: we know Biden’s a rugby fan – but who did he play for?If past statements are anything to go by the president, a proud former full-back, will be watching the MLR playoffs Martin Pengelly@ More
US Capitol attackPelosi wants ‘Americans to know the truth’ of the Capitol attack – but will we ever really know? Speaker is locked in a battle of wills with Kevin McCarthy who is determined to change the political conversation, critics sayDavid Smith in Washington@ More
Republican lawmakers have introduced the highest number of anti-trans bills to be filed in a single year in 2021. Joan E Greve speaks to Sam Levin about why some in the GOP are trying to ban transgender children from certain sports teams and limit their access to gender-affirming healthcare.
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Up to 2% of the youth population of the US are trans children, but lawmakers have introduced more than 110 bills in 2021 regulating their access to healthcare and sports teams. That is the highest number of anti-trans bills to ever be filed in a single year. The volume of laws proposed and the coordinated campaigns behind some of them suggest that this issue has become a central focus of the GOP culture war. But what is the full extent of the proposed legislation? And how many of these bills actually have a chance of becoming laws? Sam Levin and Joan E Greve discuss. Archive: CBS, ABC7, ABC11, PBS News Hour Send us your questions and feedback to [email protected] Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts More
CIAAbout 100 CIA officers and family have been sickened by Havana syndromeDirector William Burns has initiated a taskforce to investigate the syndrome and tripled the size of the medical team involved R More
First ThingUS newsFirst Thing: Kevin McCarthy pulls GOP appointees from Capitol attack panelThe minority leader accuses Nancy Pelosi of ‘playing politics’ after she rejected two of his choices for the investigation
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Vivian HoThu 22 Jul 2021 06.14 EDTLast modified on Thu 22 Jul 2021 07.23 EDTGood morning.The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, yesterday rejected two of the minority leader Kevin McCarthy’s appointments for the House select committee tasked with investigating the 6 January attack on the US Capitol.After learning of Pelosi’s veto of his choices, Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, McCarthy withdrew all five of his appointments. He called the move an “egregious abuse of power” that would “irreparably damage this institution”.
Jordan and Banks had voted in support of the baseless objections to the certification of the presidential election on 6 January, raising questions of a conflict of interest – many people who stormed the Capitol that day said they did so because they believed the election was stolen.
Pelosi, however, said how someone voted on 6 January did not disqualify them from serving on the committee, and did not object to the appointment of Troy Nehls, who also voted in support. She rejected their appointment because of their remarks disparaging the inquiry and their ties to Donald Trump, she said.
The Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney, who was previously appointed to the panel by Pelosi, called McCarthy’s actions “despicable and disgraceful”. “At every turn the minority leader has tried to get the people not to know what happened [on 6 January],” she said.
Biden: children under 12 could soon be eligible for Covid vaccineJoe Biden went on a televised CNN-hosted town hall in Cincinnati to say that children under 12, who are currently ineligible for the three coronavirus vaccines available in the US, could get shots by August or later in the fall.Covid-19 cases have nearly tripled in the US in the past two weeks, with the Delta variant sweeping through unvaccinated communities. Only 56.2% of Americans have had at least one dose of the vaccine, according to the CDC.Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty in LA trialHarvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood producer and convicted rapist serving a 23-year prison term in New York, pleaded not guilty yesterday in a Los Angeles courtroom to four counts of rape and seven other sexual assault counts.His charges pertain to alleged attacks involving five women spanning 2004 to 2013, some taking place during Oscars week, in the hotels in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles that the New York-based Weinstein would make his headquarters for Hollywood business.Uber and Lyft drivers join daylong strikeAcross the country, hundreds of Uber and Lyft drivers went on strike alongside other app-based workers, calling for better wages and congressional support of the Pro Act, a bill that would provide protections for workers who attempt to join unions.In other news …
At least 33 people have died in China’s deadly floods, raising questions about the readiness of authorities for the disaster.
Republican lawmakers’ attempt to limit the powers of local health departments across more than a dozen states is likely to lead to “preventable tragedies” during disease outbreaks, including the Covid-19 pandemic, experts say.
Alaska’s assistant attorney general has posted antisemitic and homophobic messages on social media as a supporter of the Mormon-derived extremist group the Deseret nationalists, the Guardian has found.
The US women’s soccer team lost to Sweden, 3-0, in the Olympic opener, but their Olympics are far from over.
A California couple was criminally charged for their alleged role in sparking a deadly wildfire with their gender-reveal party last year.
Stat of the dayA consumer could reduce emissions by up to 55% by choosing an airline ticket from within the cheapest 25% of fares. A new study found that people can reduce their carbon emissions while flying by choosing carbon-friendly routes when buying airline tickets.Don’t miss this: the politicization of griefFamilies who lost their loved ones to gun violence found their losses weaponized in the debate over defunding police.Climate check: the loss of a climate refugeThe recent heatwave that swept across the west, melting power cables and cracking roads, has shattered the dream of the Pacific north-west as a temperate haven in a world ravaged by the climate crisis.Last Thing: keeping tab(bie)sIn Britain, most pet cats are free to roam, leaving their owners’ minds roaming for far too often on where they have gone. The Guardian fitted six cats – Larry, Pablo, Bluebell, Marina, Zaki and Pisi – with GPS trackers to determine what they got up to for a week.Sign upSign up for the US morning briefingFirst Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you are not already signed up, subscribe now.Get in TouchIf you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email [email protected] newsFirst ThingNancy PelosiUS politicsnewsReuse this content More
