Why are we talking about rape as a preexisting condition?
/Rape is a preexisting condition under the AHCA. Or is it?
Those two sentences sum up the most flashy coverage about what the US House of Representatives did yesterday. Both inaccurately oversimplify the issue, though. This is an important conversation, and we deserve more nuance than soundbites in our discussions of this (and every other policy issue, for that matter).
The ACA - aka Obamacare - let me breathe deeply, knowing that my odd collection of health conditions no longer made me uninsurable, either because companies would reject me or because they would price me out of coverage. The AHCA - aka Trumpcare - weakens those Obamacare protections. This is all true.
Neither bill includes a list of preexisting conditions, though. Neither says, for example, rheumatoid arthritis - which I have - is a red flag. Obamacare, however, guaranteed that it wouldn't be. No insurance company could reject me or increase my rates for that sort of diagnosis. Meanwhile, Trumpcare would let states make their own decisions on hiking up costs for those people who already have the highest medical costs.
And rape survivors? Well, here's what I tweeted about that earlier today...
Gather round, y'all. It's storytime, and it's not one I can handle repeating.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I was raped multiple times in an unsafe home/family. I lost count. No, this didn't happen recently, but it happened. And it affects me today
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I have some healthcare costs that are higher because of this past. I see a therapist 3 times a week to deal with PTSD. And the surgeries...
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
One knee was reconstructed in March. We'll do the other in the fall. Why did they need this? Well, my kneecaps were dislocated back then.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
More than once, yes, during rapes. My kneecaps were dislocated during childhood rapes, and that's the reason for the surgeries this year.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I also have two autoimmune disorders. Trauma research ties childhood trauma to autoimmune conditions. (Read the book The Body Keeps Score.)
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
So, yes, I cost more to insure because I survived a series of horrible, painful, and confusing (remember, I was a child) assaults.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
This is a fact.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
Let's set aside compassion and humanity for a moment, though. Without healthcare related to my rapes, I would cost more.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
If I required inpatient PTSD recovery, for example, that would be more costly than 3 outpatient therapy sessions a week.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
If I wasn't getting the mental health care I need in inpatient or outpatient settings or the meds I take for PTSD, the costs would be higher
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
In mental healthcare, prevention reduces costs. Proactive treatment avoids costlier (both in $ and in additional trauma) emergency care.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
These knee surgeries are fixing what can be fixed. If I didn't have them or the previous one to one knee or all the PT, I'd be worse off.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
But the government would be too. I'm the primary caregiver to six small children, some w disabilities.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
If I were unable to provide our kids with the care I provide, we would need to utilize more government services and tax $ for that.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
Healthcare isn't just a knee surgery. It isn't just therapy sessions. It's all the things allowed or prevented by that care.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
And one last thing that I think is important. (& I'm using breathing exercises to avoid this being mostly f bombs and rage ranting...)
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
The privileged are demanding, once again, theater from those of us lacking privileges.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
When then-candidate Trump's tapes describing sexual assault surfaced, many of us spoke up, told stories, did theater so you might understand
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
When we - w disability, as survivors, who are sick - have to strip naked emotionally & share tender stories to earn empathy, it's not okay.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I don't know how to fix this.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
Another example is that we have to churn out thought pieces on police brutality & racism because people will read them now. Because hashtags
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
We need to care about the sick, the black boys whose skin looks like a target to some officers, the survivors when it's not trending.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
A black mother shouldn't have to perform her grief for you to earn empathy.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
A rape survivor shouldn't have to put a face on the situation before you give a damn.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
Someone who is sick already shouldn't have to act out their tragedies with emotional energy they don't have so you'll call a congressman.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
But we do. We have to. Again and again.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
Even if we hate it, we pay the price because we need allies.
And I'm watching Christians I once worshipped with and prayed with and more... and I don't recognize many of you anymore.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I don't recognize those Christians who rallied around us to adopt children with disabilities as they cheer healthcare law that harms them.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I just can't.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I have more to say, but I can't right now.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I thank God my faith is secure in him because my faith in the church is tenuous most days.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I'm done performing to earn your empathy, fellow Americans.
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
(Except that's a lie. My performance is the currency I pay to be heard.)
My point:
— Shannon Dingle (@ShannonDingle) May 5, 2017
I'm a rape and domestic violence survivor.
Why do I also have to survive lawmaker privilege & American apathy to get healthcare?
Deep breaths. That was a lot to tweet before my morning coffee, and it's a lot to re-read now.
But why are we focusing on rape as a preexisting condition anyway?
The honest answer? This whole topic is theater. It had to be. Somewhere along the way, we stopped reacting with dismay that we might be a country that denies affordable healthcare to a mom with rheumatoid arthritis or children with epilepsy, cerebral palsy, HIV, anxiety, ADHD, asthma, autism, or congenital heart defects, all conditions represented in our family picture.
Quite frankly, hearing about another sick kid needing a GoFundMe to live is too common of a story to move our hearts if it's not our kid. (But maybe, just maybe, we will care when it's Jimmy Kimmel's kid.)
So we have to go to the extreme. We have to perform a new pain. We have to dig up Boston Globe stories from the healthcare reform days back in the 1990s about domestic abuse victims being denied health insurance. (While this is theater, it isn't fiction; more on this is documented in a book from the Department of Justice.)
Is the concern about insurance coverage for rape survivors real? Yes.
But I'd say the greater concern is for our collective humanity, when the most extreme examples are the only ones that compel us to care anymore.