Remember when Congressional Republicans were urging members of their party to avoid getting healthcare? It was a calculated effort on their part to make Obamacare fail if people refused to sign up.
Well, that didn’t work as over 12 million smart and health conscious Americans have already signed up. But this man – a Republican who listened and heeded the call to forgo healthcare – refused to enroll, and now he is going blind because he has no healthcare.
Lang, a 49-year-old resident of Fort Mill, has bleeding in his eyes and a partially detached retina caused by diabetes.“He will lose his eyesight if he doesn’t get care. He will go blind,” said Dr. Malcolm Edwards, the Lancaster ophthalmologist who examined Lang.
Lang is a self-employed handyman who works with banks and the federal government on maintaining foreclosed properties. He has done well enough that his wife, Mary, hasn’t had to work. They live in a 3,300-square-foot home in the Legacy Park subdivision valued at more than $300,000.
But he has never bought insurance. Instead, he says, he prided himself on paying his own medical bills.That worked while he and his wife were relatively healthy. But after 10 days of an unrelenting headache, Lang went to the emergency room on Feb. 25. He says he was told he’d suffered several mini-strokes. He ran up $9,000 in bills and exhausted his savings. Meanwhile, his vision worsened and he can’t work, he says.
That’s when he turned to the Affordable Care Act exchange. Lang learned two things: First, 2015 enrollment had closed earlier that month. And second, because his income has dried up, he earns too little to get a federal subsidy to buy a private policy.
Lang, a Republican, says he knew the act required him to get coverage but he chose not to do so. But he thought help would be available in an emergency. He and his wife blame President Obama and Congressional Democrats for passing a complex and flawed bill.
The irony of course is the loudest voices against Obamacare are now covered by Obamacare. Don’t believe me? Ask Ted Cruz.
