Benefits

Perks.

You know how when you start a new job and you are really excited and your new employer's talk all about perks and benefits packages?  And you think…Uh…Yeah!  I want perks.  I deserve benefits!  Health insurance.  Life insurance.  Retirement plans.  Paid vacation.  Business lunches.  Annual golf tournaments.  Boom.  Benefits.  They are awesome.  Benefits are how successful employers maintain productive employees.  Benefits increase moral.  Benefits motivate.  But what if your employers are stingy with benefits?  What if you can’t afford those benefits?  When you start a new job, nobody tells you that your “benefits package” is expensive or that you have to pay for your benefits. 

Are they really benefits? 

Employers are required to offer employees “benefits.”  Some are more generous than others.  But essentially, employers “offer” benefits to protect themselves.  They have to offer employees health insurance and life insurance and disability insurance and unemployment insurance to protect themselves.  Everything they MUST offer, is “insurance.”  Mostly to “insure” they don’t get slapped with a law suit.  So, employers offer insurance in the guise of “benefits.”  But just because employees are offered benefits doesn’t mean they can afford them. 

So, why all this talk about benefits?  Why are they such a big deal?  Are you thinking “Jesus Angela, shut up about benefits?”  Well, I would love to.  But this is the thing.  I can’t afford the  benefits my employer offers.   It was more important to me to pay the rent, the car insurance, and the student loan bills than to pay $600 a month for health insurance.  Also, as a disclaimer, choosing against health insurance “benefits” wasn’t an easy decision.  Every morning when I get in the car, I say a little prayer that I make it through the day without getting in a catastrophic accident.  Every night before I go to bed, I tell myself I will be far enough ahead in a couple of months to buy that fancy insurance in the event I get sick.  I always plan on making good on that promise.  It just hasn’t worked out so far. 

You don’t have benefits? 

No.  I have them.  I just can’t afford them.  But what happens if something happens and you don’t have insurance?  What if you get sick or have an accident?  What if, and I’m just spitballing here, but WHAT IF you find a lump in your right breast?  What do you do then?  Well, I will tell you.  You start making phone calls.  You start establishing resources.  You find a way.  Because in a socially conscious society, there are programs that can help if you can't afford a mammogram or a biopsy.  At least that’s what I was told.  So, I reached out.  I did my research.  And I found out that breast health programs do exist, only you have to meet two criteria:  1.)  You have to be 200% below the poverty limit.  2.)  You have to be over 40.  So, if you are under 40 and have a job…any job…your cancer risk isn’t a concern if you don’t have health insurance. 

Aw hell…

The options.

I had to seek other options.  It’s scary to have an unidentified mass in your boob.  Everyone knows that breast cancer is a killer if it goes ignored or undetected.  I mean, there’s an entire month dedicated to wearing pink and running marathons to raise money for the cause.  I asked people how to get the diagnostics taken care of.  “How do I get treatment with no insurance?”  I asked.  I got some pretty stimulating answers.  My bestie told me to marry one of these strapping young men on base.  “They have insurance and you can buy them booze!  It’s a win-win.”  Another of my nearest and dearest said “well, if you lose your job, you’ll qualify for Medicaid.  They’ll cover it.”  That sounds like the best option I’ve heard all day.  Then I went to Doc and he gave me very explicit instructions on what to do.  “Call Komen Foundation.   Find out who their partners are in the bay area.  Call the partners.  Tell them you have to pay cash.  They’ll cut you a deal.”  Well, as enticing as finding a 19 year old husband or losing my job sounded, I think this doctor made the most sense.  I’ll call them. 

But I was humiliated just calling around to find out how to qualify for a low cost mammogram.  The thought of calling a place funded by grants to ask them for help was overwhelming, to say the least. 

The Shame.

Yesterday, I promised my sister that I would call today and figure something out.  I promised.  All day I sat with the number to the Susan G. Komen foundation displayed on one of the tiles on my desktop.  And every time I looked at it, I found something else to do.  The shame that comes with asking someone else for help is overwhelming.  We spend our entire lives trying to become independent and do right by the people around us.  It never even occurs that we might be vulnerable at some point.  And when you spend your entire life taking care of other people, you don’t ever want to be taken care of.  You don’t ever want to ask for help.  You convince yourself that you are so self-sufficient that picking up a telephone is a sign of weakness.  Today, I offered to pay a friend $20, American, to make the call for me.  Because it is too embarrassing to ask for someone to help salvage my physical and emotional health.  It’s shameful, it’s helpless, and it everything I don’t want to be. It's not a benefit and it’s defeating my inner peas.