Chris, 1977-2006

Chris was the big brother of one of my wife's best friends from when she lived out in Portland, Oregon in the late nineties. I remember him as present and close in the life of his little sister Kirsten as they both tried to figure their lives out working odd jobs and sharing group houses in their early twenties. We've got pictures of Chris giving Kirsten a piggy back ride up Mount Hood on one of their days off. They were both from Fairbanks, Alaska and far from home; they were unusually close for brothers and sisters. Chris worked at bike shops, enjoyed skiing, being outside, and spending time among a group of very close friends. Myself being an outsider to a group of people who spent much of their free time together, I remember Chris as a calm and welcoming presence. He was always good for conversation, always bringing me into the fold, making me feel like more than someone's boyfriend visiting on his spring break. I have spotty memories of goofing off to music in his basement, and going to pick blackberries on the Sandy River during the summer I came to live with my wife to be. He was one of a short list of people I hardly knew but felt very fond of.

My wife-to-be moved back east and Chris stayed in Portland while Kirsten moved down to San Francisco to pursue a degree in graphic art. Between getting married and spending less time out west, I hadn't heard much about either of them as the years passed. It was a shock to hear that he passed away in his sleep in mid-September. When someone dies suddenly at age 29, the first thoughts are drugs or suicide. But Chris was the victim of something else-- the maddening, confusing and expensive reality that young people working by the hour so often face when confronted with a health problem. Chris died because he was part of the working uninsured.

From snippets of phone conversations that my wife had with her friends out in San Francisco, I learned that Chris had gone through a bad patch of depression; so bad that he sought help out of pocket instead of just trying to tough it out. He was prescribed medication, but it wasn't long before he began having seizures. Chris stopped taking the pills, but the seizures continued. His girlfriend had to take him to the emergency room at least three times over a period of a few months. One morning he had another bad seizure that landed him in the ER again, but he was discharged a few hours later, and went home to take it easy. His girlfriend called the next morning, but there was no answer. Chris had another episode that night and suffocated alone in his bed.

As I get older I can look back at the photos we have from that time and I see now that I have two categories of friends-- the salaried and the waged. One has comprehensive health benefits, goes to have check-ups, and if there is an emergency, gets admitted into the hospital for a full work-up. The other category sweats through a case of the flu, avoids getting stitches if possible, and doesn't try to think about what would happen if they got in a car accident, or if they really got sick. They are betting that their youth will get them through the years where they don't have benefits. Given the same situation that Chris found himself, one category goes to get a CT scan and finds out what's wrong, and the other bounces in and out of the emergency room until one day it's too late. It was certainly a wake-up call for me-- a fundamental divide across the very people I know and care for.

On a road trip a few years ago, I was chatting with a father and son from Oklahoma over a few beers at a casino in Reno. I told them what I did for a living in my usual soundbite saying, "We try to get more health care to more people for cheaper". The father sighed and said, "You're a liberal then. You know, if it's a hot day and all the kids are playing outside, is it the government's responsibility to give all the kids popsicles?" The only thing I could think to say was, "Health care isn't popsicles." And it isn't.

Chris shouldn't have died. He shouldn't have been hastily discharged from the hospital after such a history of seizures, and he wouldn't have been if he was insured. He should have been able to afford a doctor's visit and any referrals to specialists, if they were needed. At an average of $3300 an ER visit, it is a fallacy to think that getting help up front would cost more in any long-run sense. It is also morally unforgivable that we allow the people who fit us for a pair of shoes, make us sandwiches, or sell us a bike to live at their own risk. Any argument against this is draws from an essentially selfish ethos. The uninsured isn't some abstract problem, it lives and dies among us all. Our health care system shouldn't be predicated on some lecture on personal responsibility; these are our friends we're talking about, our brothers and sisters. It's just plain cheaper and it saves lives to cover every last person out there. This isn't about popsicles. This isn't some developing country, this is America. Let's find a way. We can and should prevent these needless deaths.