First, the coronavirus pandemic took their jobs. Then, it wiped out their health insurance.
By Amy Goldstein
April 18, 2020
Gary Easley was worried as he took a bus to the pharmacy at West Virginia Health Right, a free clinic that has stood for decades in Charleston, W.Va. Normally, he goes to Walgreens and Kroger to get the nine prescriptions he relies on for his high blood pressure and high cholesterol, diabetes and mood swings, leg pain and lung trouble.
But three weeks before — on March 17, the day West Virginia would become the last state to confirm its first coronavirus case — Easley was summoned to the general manager’s office at the Four Points by Sheraton at 9:30 a.m. His job of five years as the hotel’s morning-shift chef, he was told, was ending in a half-hour. His health benefits ended two weeks later.
Easley, out of a job and out of a health plan, and Health Right, swamped with new patients, represent a ripple effect of the novel coronavirus sweeping the United States. In a nation where most health coverage is hinged to employment, the economy’s vanishing jobs are wiping out insurance in the midst of a pandemic.
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When Easley still had his job and his hospitality industry health plan, co-pays on his prescriptions cost $140 a month, he said. If he had to buy them on his own, they would cost $2,007 a month, including more than $900 for insulin and syringes alone, according to figures from Health Right, which gave him the medications free, delivered at the curb.
“That’s a blessing,” said Easley, 56.
For a quarter-century, he worked at the hotel across from the Kanawha River, which runs through town. After Sheraton took it over five years ago, he worked seven days a week until he began taking Sundays off.
He was the first to arrive in the kitchen, taking the 4:10 a.m. bus downtown from his apartment building in time to start at 4:30 a.m. Sometimes, he stayed through the lunch shift, getting enough time at $12.40 an hour to make about $18,000 a year.
The morning he and a dishwasher were summoned to the general manager, he already had prepped for lunch and was cleaning up. “I kind of had a feeling something was going on,” Easley recalled.
Even though West Virginia still didn’t have a covid-19 case — Gov. Jim Justice (R) would announce the first, 300 miles northeast in Shepherdstown, that night — the restaurant had few customers. And Easley had been watching the news.
The general manager told him he would be the first rehired, he said. That didn’t help him now.
Two days later, Easley was on the phone with a human resources specialist at Sheraton headquarters going over separation details. She asked whether he was going to pay the $299 to keep his insurance going for April.
“I don’t even have that,” he replied, unsure how he was going to pay $618 in rent and utilities.
In that case, she told him, his health plan’s last day would be March 31.
more & worth your time:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/health/first-the-coronavirus-pandemic-took-their-jobs-then-it-wiped-out-their-health-insurance/2020/04/18/1c2cb5bc-7d7c-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most
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