RFH is a shared publication featuring the voices of leading health care experts, clinicians, health insurance advisors, dissidents, dreamers, activists and one Emergency Medicine PA who refuses to give up hope for systemic change.
Iām not unique.
Or special.
Like so many people in the country, I grew up poor as sh*t - without health insurance and without predictable access to healthcare.
The emergency room WAS my āprimary care doctor.ā
I was anxious & scared all the time, yet ānon-compliantā w/meds & follow up.
And even if Iād understood what needed done & how, I couldnāt afford it anyway.
My family and my community had the f*cking audacity to be poor, so thatās just how it goes.
And now things are so out of control and hard to manage that no one is safe.
Today, who doesnāt know someone whose life has been threatened or ruined by the āhealthcareā system?
The stories are everywhere.
The untreated mental health problems that turn into addiction, or suicide.
The rationed insulin that becomes an ER visit, a hospitalization & bankruptcy.
The family member thatās lost to homelessness & despair because they have no idea what else to do.
The tragedies are never-ending.
I had dinner with an ER doc last week, a friend, who told me that sheād recently diagnosed a patient with colon cancer in the ER.
Patient was a stay-at-home dad between health insurance plans.
She was upset because she wasnāt convinced that he would have the courage, the money & the knowledge that he would need to get the life-saving follow-up care he needed to see his kids go to college.
Based on his comments, she thought he might eventually decide that his wife and 4 kids would be better off if he were dead instead of ādriving their family into debt for his treatment.ā
Because of this tiny, niche community Iāve found - I had ideas.
And when I explained a handful of viable options for affording care & navigating the process specific to his particular case,
She was speechless.
Shocked.
She had no idea that there was a parallel universe being created in real time to solve issues exactly like this one.
She didnāt know because almost no one does.
How many people are sitting contemplating horrible, horrible tragic things because they donāt even know what they donāt know?
Solutions exist, but weāve already given up.
Weāve given in to a system that is too expensive, too complex & too overwhelming to navigate -so much that suicide seems like a āreasonable optionā to an ER DOCTOR.
Itās a sh*t hand that no one deserves, but most (even the insured) find yourselves in.
It took me decades, to crawl out of poverty and thank God by way of the NFL, German medical school, research at Hopkins, and eventually rural ERs on the Maryland & Delaware coasts, I found the strength and the community Iāve been looking for.
And since then, Iāve traveled the country speaking to patients, health care experts, policy makers, doctors, PAs, nurses and health insurance gurus looking for answers and Iām finding them.
Reforming the American Healthcare System
And while the stories that I hear are heartbreaking.
Solutions are everywhere.
They go counter to the narratives that weāve been taught since childhood, and they require us to take ownership and responsibility for what happens to us, but they are waiting patiently - poised & waiting for us to grab hold.
My only goal in publishing this letter is to make you aware of the power that you already have over your own body and your own health journey.
The power that I know you arenāt using only because you donāt know how yet.
I want to share everything Iāve learned so you donāt have to live without hope or direction any more.
In case Iām not being clear, hereās what Iām saying.
YOU are the only decision maker that matters.
YOU are the f*cking boss.
Not your doctor.
Not your employer.
Not your pharmacist.
Not the insurance company.
It starts and ends with you - it always has.
They say parenting doesnāt have a handbook, and it doesnāt (as far as I know), but being a patient doesnāt have one either,
Itās time for that to change.
Join me for imperfect discussions, ideas and strategy to inform and empower your health and healthcare journey.
I want to change the world, but Iāve learned that I canāt.
Because it has to start with you.
You can.
LFG.
Be part of a community of people who share your interests - participate in the comments section, or support this work with a subscription.
No matter what, Iām glad youāre here.
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