Stories behind CWA’s health care activists

Among nearly 200 CWA activists who came to Washington last week to lobby for health reform were David and Kelly Arellanes, of Local 6508 in Little Rock, Ark., and Jeanine Maury of Local 7800 in Seattle.  Their personal stories are dramatic demonstrations of why the health insurance system must change.

About five years ago, David and Kelly Arellanes and their children went on a family vacation. Kelly fell off a horse, hitting her head and suffering traumatic brain injury. She was helicoptered to the nearest hospital, where doctors told him they could do emergency brain surgery, and "if we decided not to do the surgery, she probably had less than an hour to live."

Then came a trauma of a different kind. UnitedHealthcare, their insurer, said that they wouldn't pay, because David hadn't notified them of the surgery.  His cell phone records proved that he had. Then they said they wouldn't pay because the hospital was out-of-network, and Kelly should have come to Little Rock to get surgery in network.  That, too, was dealt with.

But the Arellanes family didn't just have hassles, they had bills - several hundred thousand dollars worth.  They were able to battle with the insurer to get some paid, but they also spent their savings and their daughter's college fund. "And we're supposed to have the Cadillac plan," David said, noting that his coverage, provided by AT&T, is one of the high-cost plans that would be subject to taxation under a Senate Finance Committee bill.

Jeanine Maury has been "a severe, chronic asthmatic since the day I was born." Her mother was a CWA member at what was then Pacific Northwest Bell, so she had good coverage, until she became an adult.  She tried to buy an individual policy, but couldn't find one she could afford, because of her asthma. She got a job that had coverage, but didn't include the doctors who had cared for her all her life; she paid for them out of pocket.

That was okay until she was hospitalized in 1993 - and ended up with a bill for $60,000 for out-of-network care. It took her ten years to pay that off.  Now she works for Qwest and has good coverage again, but feels that her job choice is limited. "I still have to choose my profession based on my health."

She figures that she could have bought a house for $60,000 in 1993. Instead, she spent the next decade digging out of debt. Because of her medical bills, she says, "I deferred my American dream for 10 years."

She's also seen the problems of his sister, Jill Cunningham, a diabetic. Jill got insurance, but it wouldn't cover her diabetes, a pre-existing condition, for nine months. During that time, she went untreated, "and her health deteriorated so much she couldn't work. Because of the denial of coverage, you took away a productive member of society, probably for life."

Not all the members who came to Capitol Hill had such compelling personal experiences with the health insurance system.  Ronald Gay Jr., from Local 4300 in Youngstown, Oh., said he got involved in the campaign for health reform and the Employee Free Choice Act because it would be "good for the labor movement" and because he's always been interested in politics.

Now, he said, he's stepping up his efforts because of the distortions and misinformation that are concerning so many of the members of his local. "If we can continue to put out the correct information," he said, "we can get this across the finish line."