Mother Tweets Son’s Medical Bills, Post Goes Viral Amid Growing Healthcare Debate

Amid the raging debate on the Senate healthcare bill, a mother’s tweets showing pictures of her son’s hospital bills have gone viral, adding fuel to the rising voices against Trumpcare. Trumpcare is the colloquial name for the American Health Care Act (AHCA), a proposed replacement for the Affordable Care Act – commonly known as Obamacare – that House Republican leadership unveiled on March 6, 2017.

Allison Chandra from Middlesex County, New Jersey, in a series of tweets, talked about her 3-year-old son Ethan’s medical expenses, saying that her son had a rare heart defect known as "heterotaxy." In an interview with CNN, she explained, “Ethan was born with nine congenital heart defects and he has two left lungs. Five or so spleens of dubious function, his liver, and his gallbladder are down the middle of his body along with his heart, and then his stomach is on the right instead of the left side”.

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Ethan has already undergone several open heart surgeries and is dependent on a pacemaker. His mother said it was likely that he would be on medication his entire life. Without insurance, Ethan's family would have had to pay $231,115 for 10 hours in the OR, one week in the CICU and one week on the cardiac floor, his mother said in one of her tweets. Other expenses included more than $4,700 for “coronary care” and nearly $43,000 for supplies and implants.

However, with their current insurance plan, the family only owed $500 for all these expenses.

According to Chandra, Ethan’s prenatal care and first two surgeries were paid for through Medicaid until they were able to switch onto her husband’s employer-sponsored insurance. However, in the Senate version of the Republican health care bill, significant cuts have been suggested to federal Medicaid reimbursements. The bill also aims to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s 3.8 percent capital gains tax, among other taxes targeting high-earning individuals.

Protesting this, Chandra tweeted Friday: “[Ethan’s] life is infinitely precious. That’s why we fight so hard. And now this bill wants to take all that and throw it away for the sake of tax cuts for people who don’t even need them.”

She stated good health care coverage and good health care laws are important for her family. "My fear is that this bill comes into play and suddenly essential health benefits are no longer covered, like hospitalization, prescription medications," she said in the interview with CNN. "He will rely on prescription medications for the rest of his life. He is functionally asplenic and will need to take prophylactic antibiotics the rest of his life to prevent and protect against sepsis, a huge risk of death for our kids in the heterotaxy community," she added.

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Recent ratings by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office have estimated 22 million Americans could lose health insurance by 2026 because of the bill. The updated version of the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act also includes a provision that puts people, whose insurance has lapsed, out of coverage for six months.