I was a lead press operator for 20 years. I somewhere along this time had an injury to my back that nobody could pinpoint to my job or anything else. I have 3 children that I was raising on my own and supporting. I didn’t want to be on welfare so I struggled. I have degenerative lumbar disorder along with bad arthritis in my hips. The constant bending and lifting only made my pain worse and my back and hips worse. I wanted to quit my job and find something else that wouldn’t hurt so bad but I knew that no other medical ins. would take me because of existing problems and I wouldn’t start at a high wage that I had do to my experience. I was on Kiaser.

When my last child finally graduated I was able to go on SDI and move to my parents to get retrained for something else through voc. re-hab, a great program I might ad. I thought I would be eligible for medi-cal but was denied because I made to much on SDI. I had to keep myself and my son(Now a college student) on some kind of medical ins. and the only one that would take me for now was kaiser, (CAL COBRA). For one year I will be paying 516.00 per month for my son and I. That to me is a lot of money, plus I will be paying a 30.oo co-pay every time I go to the doctors. I feel that I am being robbed after all those years of working. After a year goes by, I won’t be able to be on cobra anymore. What then? I have to have some kind of ins. If I had no choice but to go on SDI, why didn’t they offer me some kind of ins.? You offer this program to people that can’t do the job they have been doing for years but then don’t offer any medical assistance to them knowing that they will need it, I mean the whole reason I went on medical leave was because I was in to much pain, Why would we go on SDI if we didn’t need it? It was something we just had to do. It doesn’t make any since to me at all. We need to reform our medical badly. People are not going to the doctors because they can’t afford it. I considered not having any medical ins. but I know that I will be needing to see a doctor due to my illness and God forbid something worse could happen to my son or I.

If I didn’t move to my parents, I would in no way be able to afford medical along with all the other bills of survival, my back and hips would go untreated and I would be going bankrupt because of the hospital visits. What kind of a system is that? It’s like we are being punished for being in pain. I can’t live on my own right now, I have to live with my parents and I am 44 years old, how bad is that, yuk! If the monthly amount that was coming out of my checks for ins. and was going towards a State account for everybody, I wouldn’t have minded so much at all. At least I know that if anything ever happened to me or my children we all would be covered no matter what. Anyone that works would have a certain amount taken from their checks to cover a Statewide ins. program for everyone. I am all for that. In the mean time I will continue to struggle Like thousands of others. We need to do something now about this. We need to put a stop to medical Ins. that seems to be robbing us of our hard earned money, and make sure that everybody can be seen if they need it without getting bad credit. Or the worse, not getting seen because they can’t afford it and letting a desease get worse because they can’t afford it. Or letting cancer get worse because it was undetected or they can’t afford the treatment. The way it is set up now is a nightmare and is sick! People are dieing because of the neglect!