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Idealism is better than ignorance

About three weeks ago I was seen (at a local hospital) for a puncture wound in my foot. Since it was after hours, I had to go into the emergency room as I hadn’t been able to stop the bleeding on my own. Knowing how expensive an ambulance can be, I opted to wait instead for the nearest available friend (30 minutes away) to arrive at my house and then drive the additional 30 minutes to the ER.

Once at the emergency room, all (the local hospital) did was clean the wound, give me a tetanus shot, and put a literal Band Aid on it, which I completely bled through before even making it halfway back home. The wound continued bleeding the next three days before I finally could seize switching layers of gauze every hour or so.

Fast forward to now: I receive a bill in the mail for almost $1,000 (after insurance paid their portion). $1,000 for a shot, some peroxide, and a Band Aid. There were no stitches, no pain killers, no ambulance ride — just a Band Aid for almost $1,000 despite decent health insurance coverage.

When I ran for office this past cycle and pointed out these disparities in our health care system: price gouging in big pharma, crooked insurance corporations and astronomical health care pricing; people claimed I was an ‘idealist’ and a ‘socialist’. In this case it’s pretty obvious that idealism is better than ignorance.

I don’t believe it is socialism for a person to want their basic human needs met without driving them into debt. I don’t believe a Band Aid should cost a grand. I don’t believe insulin should be so expensive that people needing it to live are forced to ration it while still struggling to make ends meet. I don’t believe that we as human beings should be punished for needing proper health care.

While I appreciate and value each and every one of our health care workers, I do not appreciate nor value our representatives that turn a blind eye to these issues. I do not appreciate nor value our representatives that vote against life-saving legislation like affordable insulin (plus multiple other bills that addresses these issues) and instead allow their campaign funds to lie in bed with large corporations, including big pharma.

There are far too many people in our communities that avoid getting the care they need because of cost. There are students that would rather risk dying from alcohol poisoning than having an ambulance pick them up from a party.

There’s grandparents that worry about how they’ll have their next meal and their prescriptions without having to choose. There’s families that go years without their routine check ups and immunizations because they struggle to even cover the co-pay.

Health care is supposed to be a means of providing a better quality of life- not forcing people to choose between life and death. Our leaders must do better in fixing this system.

— Doria Drost is resident of Tracy and 2020 candidate for the Minnesota House of Representatives District 16A

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