Someone in my family has macular degradation, it seems like an awful and incredibly hard way to loose your vision slowly over years.
Hopefully your wife's vision is not getting worse too fast, autoimmune sounds bad still, as someone with normal vision. Losing your eyesight is terrifying, in my opinion.
Tying health insurance to your job has to be one of the worst parts of the American system.
I did some software work, years ago on a 'perimeter' machine that projects points of light at varying intensities so that doctors can track macular degradation.
It was interesting work in terms of the tech, but pretty sad stuff learning to the doctors come in to present information about the pathologies involved.
It's definitely bad, but fortunately it has responded really well to immune-suppresers, and it's fortunately only one eye. There's definitely some level of permanent damage, she is unlikely to ever get it back to 100%, but it's certainly not as bad as it could be.
> Tying health insurance to your job has to be one of the worst parts of the American system.
Yeah, it gives companies so much more power than they really deserve. Not only can they cut off my income supply, which is more or less the nominal agreement we have as part of the capitalist transaction, but they also get to decide if I (or any of my dependents) get to get treatment for any kind of illness.
The medicaid system in the US is actually not too bad, I was really grateful for that in the tail end of 2023 and beginning of 2024 when I was unemployed, but it's extremely concerning that (SOME UNNAMED POLITICIANS THAT I WON'T NAME BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO BE FLAGGED BY SOMEONE WHO THINKS THAT BRINGING UP POLITICS IS SOMEHOW OUT OF THE SCOPE OF HN) want to drastically cut that program.
I got fired at the tail end of 2023; I did have COBRA but the cost for it was astronomical; to continue my coverage for me and my wife was almost 4 grand a month. [1]
It's certainly better to have COBRA, and it does reduce the power that companies have over your health, but it's not a silver bullet.
[1] I won't say which company I was working for but it's not hard to find my work history if you want to make sure which companies to avoid in the future.
I’m sorry to hear this. I’m dealing with an insurance company right now that can’t be bothered to bring up its customer portal after a two week outage.
Hopefully your wife's vision is not getting worse too fast, autoimmune sounds bad still, as someone with normal vision. Losing your eyesight is terrifying, in my opinion.
Tying health insurance to your job has to be one of the worst parts of the American system.