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Native Intelligence
	The system refuses to let 'Bill' live (Published March 21, 2005) By DIANA WINTHROP

As I write this column, a legal battle rages over the right of Florida resident Terry Schiavo to die naturally. My friend, a native Washingtonian (I'll call him Bill), is seriously ill, but the system refuses to allow him to live.

Doctors say that without his medication, Bill will die in the next few months. He can't afford the hundreds of dollars of medicine he needs to live. The only thing that has kept him alive this long, beyond his receiving medication, is that someone gave him two months worth of the diuretic that relieves the pressure on his heart. His wife has contacted government agencies, health care programs and even tried the pharmaceutical companies that offer free medication to people who can't pay.

The system says his family's income is too high, because his wife makes about $2,000 more than the government says would qualify him for any kind of help. If he doesn't get help, doctors say he will drown in his own fluids in the next few months. His wife, who earns $27,820 annually, can't afford the $300-400 a month health insurance premiums for a man of his age. She doesn't have health insurance and her company doesn't offer it. Everywhere she turns for help, she gets turned away. She is literally watching her husband die before her eyes.

Last November, Bill was hospitalized once again to slow down his heart rate. The few days in Washington Hospital Center cost $52,000. Since hospitals in the District must treat everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, Medicaid paid Bill's $52,000 hospital bill. Washington Hospital Center was made whole again. Bill was not.

Friends and neighbors are telling Bill's wife to quit her job so that Bill would get his medicine. Of course, the couple would lose their house, which is in much need of repair, if she did.

Bill and his wife are working-class people who, during the good times, earned a household income of more than $60,000. It might be a lot of money in Iowa, but it isn't in D.C. They raised three children on those earnings, and it wasn't the easiest task.

Bill is 57 years old. He had a stroke in 2000, open heart surgery in 2001 and another surgical procedure last November. He worked for the D.C. Department of Public Works for 16 years. His job was dissolved. As a D.C. government employee, he had health insurance. Since he did not work in city government for 20 years, he eventually lost his health insurance. His wife earns $535 a week. Medicaid says she must earn $498 or less per week for Bill to receive help.

Washington Hospital Center gave Bill three months of prescriptions last November. Family and friends helped. The prescriptions have expired. Bill's eyes now appear sunken. The water pills are not enough. He has blown up once again. Any doctor will tell you that kind of edema could be a sign of an impending heart attack. The good news is, if he has a heart attack again, a D.C. hospital will treat him. The bad news is, given his many health-related episodes, he may not survive another one. His wife tells me she wouldn't be surprised to come home and find him dead.

Bill's story is not unique. There are many people who pay their taxes, live, work and struggle in the District without health care. If Mayor Anthony A. Williams has his way, the Bills of the world won't be living in D.C. anymore. They'll be forced out by skyrocketing housing costs. We expect people to work, but we don't provide health care.

The Bills of the world will still need help, though they will be gone from our neighborhoods – along with our souls. It is an overused, though valid, phrase that the quality of a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. If Bill is an example, we have done a lousy job.

Councilman David Catania has scheduled a public hearing March 22 on a measure he has authored that would eventually give D.C. residents access to more affordable prescription drugs. The plan, patterned after a similar one in Canada, would make drugs cost less for residents, which Bill thinks is a good idea -- and something he wants to use, if he lives to see it enacted.

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Diana Winthrop is a native Washingtonian. Contact her at diana@thecommondenominator.com.

Copyright 2005 The Common Denominator