National Nurses United

PAGE 11 AND ABOVE: CRAIG ALAN program like all other industrialized nations have. Most Americans don���t realize it, but the United States already has such a program. It���s called Medicare, but the problem is it is only available to those 65 and older. ���If I had been on Medicare, I would have gotten a mammogram much earlier, we would have caught [the cancer] much earlier, and everything would have cost less,��� said Wyeth. ���My mom and dad both died of cancer, so, yeah, not getting mammograms was one thing I worried about. I���m feeling sort of angry about it.��� While she���s grateful to qualify for treatment through Medicaid, Wyeth is constantly afraid that, with conservative attacks on the program in the name of balancing the budget and eliminating entitlements for the poor, she could lose the precious healthcare she has at any moment. Furthermore, if Wyeth found a decent-paying job (certainly a goal of hers), she might no longer qualify for Medicaid. ���I���m always afraid of getting kicked off for whatever reason,��� she said. ���It���s always in the back of my mind. It���s terrifying to me.��� Because of her own situation, Wyeth has thought a lot about American healthcare reform and the contradictions inherent in offering healthcare to seniors, and often to children, but not everyone else. A selfdescribed political person and advocate, Wyeth said that she talks about expanding Medicare or healthcare for all to people whenever she gets the chance. Improving and expanding Medicare to cover everyone, regardless of age, is a longtime goal of National Nurses United, and the organiza���If I had been on Medicare, I would have gotten a tion will be campaigning for it with renewed mammogram much earlier, we would have caught [the vigor in 2012. cancer] much earlier, and everything would have cost ���One thought that struck me is that there���s medical care for children and old less. My mom and dad both died of cancer, so, yeah, not happen to be the parent getting mammograms was one thing I worried about. people, but if youdie, you leave orphans!��� and get sick and I���m feeling sort of angry about it.��� said Wyeth. ���There should be a solution. Every other developed nation has figured it out. Charities can only do so much. Government is about people But two months after graduating, Wyeth underwent a CT scan helping each other.��� for some digestive issues she was having. The results were not good: Though Wyeth is an upbeat person, she still has her worries. She The scan showed a lump in her liver, and after further tests, it was has no formal job, she has $32,000 of student loan debt that she can���t determined to have all the same markers as her breast cancer. It had keep deferring forever, and she���s still seven years away from qualifying spread. She is now taking various medications to treat the liver canfor Medicare. ���It will be an incredible relief, a huge relief, to be able to cer and discussing with her doctors her next course of action. participate in Medicare,��� she said. ���That is, if I make it that far.��� Wyeth often wonders how things would have turned out differently if she hadn���t skipped three years of mammograms, if she had been able to get regular mammograms through a national healthcare Lucia Hwang is editor of National Nurse. MARCH 2012 W W W. N AT I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 13

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