Australian immigrant's health insurance struggles may send him back
By Alison Knezevich
The Charleston Gazette
June 14, 2009
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Moving boxes are stacked in the living room of Andrew and Rita Watson’s Kanawha City apartment.
The Australian immigrants are preparing for a trip neither wants to make.
“I don’t have any insurance, and I’m uninsurable,” 65-year-old Andrew Watson said.
And that could send him back to Australia.
In 1989, Australian surgeons replaced his right hip. He never got a hospital bill.
Since 1984, the country has offered universal health care through a program called Medicare, a government-operated system funded by taxes. Australians can also choose to use private insurance.
Last October, Watson’s hip replacement gave out. It was 19 years to the day he got it, he said.
He believes it’s wearing its way into the bone of his pelvic girdle. He’s sore all the time and walks with a cane.
Surgery would cost more than $50,000, he said.
In 1993, the couple settled in Charleston to be closer to Rita Watson’s children. In America, they’ve never had health insurance.
Watson pointed to his plastic green Australian Medicare card. He has dual American-Australian citizenship.
When he gets to Australia, “I’m just going to present that and say nothing.”
He plans to go by himself. If he must stay for a long period of time, he says his wife will follow.
The Watsons’ struggles come as health-care reform takes center stage in Washington, D.C. President Barack Obama and Congress are preparing legislation to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, though many questions remain unanswered.
The Watsons say their experience has given them a unique perspective. For the past seven months, they’ve worked with the state chapter of a national group called Physicians for a National Health Program to promote “single-payer” health care.
“The American people deserve it,” said Rita Watson, 71. “They’re very, very hardworking.”
They know many Americans don’t like the idea. Critics say it would lead to long waits and poor care.
Many others haven’t heard of it. A few weeks ago, Rita Watson’s son visited from Elkview.
“I brought up single-payer,” she said. “He said, ‘What’s that?’”
The single-payer system would work like America’s Medicare program for the elderly. A government-run agency, financed by taxes on employers and employees, would collect fees and pay them out to providers.
Everyone would be covered, and no one would pay co-payments or deductibles.
Proponents say the current for-profit insurance system denies people the care they need and is mired in administrative waste that drives up costs.
In December, the couple attended a meeting for Obama supporters. The conversation turned to health care.
They met Dr. Hedda Haning, an anesthesiologist with Physicians for a National Health Program.
“He got up with an obvious accent,” Haning said. “People were very interested to hear, because he was someone from elsewhere.”
Now retired, Andrew Watson has worked as an industrial plant maintenance mechanic, and maintained machines for a records management company, among other jobs. He never made enough money to pay insurance premiums.
Rita Watson has worked for a gas company, the state, and a behavioral health agency.
“I was in temporary work, and I always got 39 hours,” an hour short of qualifying for benefits, she said.
In 2004, a blood infection sent Andrew Watson to Charleston Area Medical Center for 11 days. After that, he needed bandages, saline solution and other supplies to take care of his wounds at home. His bill: $26,000.
The CAMC doctors “saved my life,” he said.
“There’s nothing wrong with the health care,” he said. “It is the way the funding and the billing is managed. And that is the trouble in the Untied States.”
Last month, the Watsons visited Washington, D.C., with Physicians for a National Health Program to lobby representatives.
When they visit the grocery store, they wear “Single Payer” buttons with the slogan, “Everybody in, nobody out.”
“It’s about equity,” he said.
Much of the debate in Washington now centers around whether a “public option” — a government-sponsored insurance plan to compete with the private industry — will be available. Obama supports such a plan. Critics say it’s a backdoor to a single-payer system.
“There are various things that have been talked about in the last week or so, but what happens next is anybody’s guess,” said Haning, who’s been pushing for a single-payer system for about 20 years. “It seems that Congress wants to protect the insurance companies.”
In Kanawha City, Rita Watson said she and her husband are “hoping and praying” that somehow, they won’t have to leave the United States.
“The American people are tops,” she said. “There’s no one like them.… Australia is a beautiful country. But it’s not America. This is home.”