Elizabeth Geronikos

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When an Apple a Day Isn't Enough: Students Speak Out About Health Coverage
To generate awareness among America's youth about the importance of health care coverage, Families USA [1] and the Campaign for Children's Health Care [2] sponsored a national essay contest for youth between the ages of 9-18. More than 4,500 students submitted stories nationwide, and one winner was chosen from each state. The essay below by Elizabeth Geronikos and the other winning essays highlight the importance of SCHIP and all were written by youth who directly benefited from the program.

Both of my parents have college degrees. We live in a nice home and up until about 6 years ago, I never really thought too much about people without health insurance. Then, one day, it happened to me and my family. My father lost his job when the business he worked for was sold. Unable to find employment with a high enough wage to sustain our family with benefits, my mother and father, using most of the equity we had in our house, purchased a business (a beer distributorship) in hopes that it would provide the family with enough income to support us. The cost of paying for health insurance ate up any profits they made, and not too long after that, they had to close the doors of the business because they could no longer afford to operate it. My mother worked two jobs (and still does to this day) as a result.

Fortunately for my brother, sister and me, when our income dropped to dangerously low levels, we qualified for a thing called CHIP. Because of CHIP, I was able to go to the dentist, and get my eyes checked and get my allergy/asthma medicine for free. I had heard about CHIP in an assembly in my school when I was much younger, never thinking I would ever need it.

My parents were put on a waiting list for low income health insurance and had no health insurance for about a year. My father, who has high blood pressure and high cholesterol, had to go for a year without his medication.

My father was constantly looking for a job but was unable to obtain full-time employment in Pennsylvania and was forced to accept a warehouse position in New Jersey. The company offered benefits, however the cost of the benefits ate up most of his paycheck. The good thing was that he could get the medicine he needed, but it still cost over $100 a month in co-pays. Then the gas crisis came. It was costing him half his paycheck just to commute to New Jersey every week. My mother took on yet a third job temporarily.

Finally, my father got a break and was offered employment in our home state of Pennsylvania that offered benefits. The one perk he got by taking the job is that they gave him a car and he doesn't have to pay for gas, which is such a big help. However, my father now makes the same amount of money he did when he graduated from Penn State in 1985, but we do have medical benefits and he does take his medication now.

I will be eternally grateful for the support CHIP provided us with while we needed it, and we only used it for a time when it was absolutely necessary. As soon as benefits were available to us, my mother withdrew us from CHIP.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons from the ordeal that my parents and family went through in regard to health benefits, and I hope to never have to rely on such drastic measures as to watch my father suffer without his medication in order for us to have food on the table ever again.

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