Men Mainsplain My Health to Me
Hello friends,
For the past 6 weeks I have spent nearly every day trying to figure out why I am so incredibly ill. I’ve been calling doctors, trying to get appointments, and ended up at the ER 3 times. On the surface I think I have managed to keep up with my work. I launched a podcast (apple link, spotify link), have tried to keep up with my instagram and provided you with some unique insights with these newsletters. But behind the scenes I’m not alright. At times I’ve lost my vision, my mobility and my ability to stay conscious.
I’ve been doing everything in my power to try to make appointments with the right doctors to get the care that I need. But a catch-22 of our current system is that it’s hard to get a doctor’s appointment without a diagnosis and you can’t get a diagnosis without a doctor. It seems to me that the requirements from the insurance company, the packed schedules and limited resources, has made it impossible for people in my position. My primary care physician sends referrals off into the universe to what end?
All of this is frustrating, but also frustrating are the responses I have been getting from mostly male doctors mansplaining the medical system to me.
I want to share this with you not to complain, but because I know I am not the only one going through this. I am hoping that my story can help one of you to feel less alone. So many of us have encountered this broken system at some point and we need to talk about it out loud in order for anything to get fixed.
I am not talking about this to say the system is totally broken and should be thrown out entirely. The system is broken for a lot of reasons, mainly because of capitalism and I truly believe that while the Dems are not at all perfect when it comes to fixing healthcare, they are trying and will continue to try to craft something that improves people’s lives.
One thing I do know is that I’ll be better before Donald Trump reveals he knows what his healthcare plan is (he has concepts of a plan!). The Republican National Platform literally says that healthcare costs are being driven up because of illegal immigration. It also says the plan is: “Republicans will increase Transparency, promote Choice and Competition, and expand access to new Affordable Healthcare and prescription drug options.” Why are so many words capitalized? I don’t know!
On September 15th JD Vance told Meet The Press that deregulation is the answer, saying that we should “promote some more choice in our health care system and not have a one-size-fits-all approach that puts a lot of people into the same insurance pools, into the same risk pools.”A few days later he reiterated this, “what that will also do is allow people with similar health situations to be in the same risk pools.” What that means is that the Trump concepts of a plan are to roll back the rules passed as part of Obamacare that prohibited insurance companies from discriminating against pre-existing conditions. Currently, everyone has to be in the same insurance pool, but under the Trump/Vance plan - people with pre-existing conditions would be put in their own (likely totally unaffordable) pool.
This is an unpopular position. Two-thirds of the public — and half of Republicans — say that maintaining this protection is “very important.” Unfortunately the polling also suggests that many Americans have forgotten what it used to be like and the medical discrimination that used to be pervasive.
As a walking pre-existing condition, I’m with the majority of Americans who are against the “high risk pool” plan. And look, I’m pretty unhappy with the healthcare system at this time. I wish I could spend my time learning about how it can be improved, not fighting with all my heart to merely keep the situation that we currently have!
But back to me. This is a recent message I got when I asked a doctor for help getting an urgent appointment because I keep blacking out and I was trying to get in with a specialist.
It is essentially telling me that my only course of action here is to go to the already overtaxed ER and use their resources.