THIS TIME ON CODE WACK!

 

In honor of Mother’s Day,  we’re talking about how our dysfunctional health insurance system affects moms. How far did one mother go to ensure that her daughter – born extremely premature – got the critical care she needed? 

How did our broken healthcare system push our guest, Rebecca Wood, to delay her own care for the sake of her daughter Charlie, with devastating consequences? How has Rebecca’s life been transformed since she testified before Congress in 2019 about the impossible choices she faced? This is the first of two podcast episodes featuring Rebecca Wood.

 

SHOW NOTES

WE DISCUSS

 

Welcome back to Code WACK!, Rebecca! For those who may not have heard of you, tell us a bit about yourself.

 

“I’m Rebecca Wood. I had a pretty ordinary life up until my daughter’s birth, I would say. I did all the adult milestones, went to college, got married, and then when I had my daughter, she was born at 26 weeks gestation. 

“She weighed one pound, 11 ounces and that was the beginning of, I guess, a giant snowball of change in my life. It definitely launched me into the policy realm.  Unbeknownst to me . . .  her birth was the beginning of that. I’m finishing up my first year of law school. I am a full-time law student, and I live in the metro west region of Boston.” – Rebecca Wood

 

Your daughter Charlie needed very expensive care from a wide variety of specialist physicians and therapists. Only some of those costs were covered by health insurance. How did you manage? 

“When she was younger, it broke us and we had to scrape together whatever we could. And I applied for scholarships to a lot of her therapies and things like that in order to get those for her. And some of them came through, some of them didn’t. You know, you just <laugh> you throw out a wide net, and hope you get something. 

“And then later on, my husband and I, we separated and got divorced and suddenly I was a single mom and the first six to eight months were absolutely awful. I had to find a way to work without childcare and you know, she was little. So I drove for Uber Eats with her in tow, and at that time, I just could not afford my asthma medication, even like the minimal asthma medication.

“I had to go to the ER with her in hand sometimes in the middle of the night. And I asked her recently if she remembered that, and thank God she doesn’t, but she does remember when we drove for Uber Eats.

 “And then later on, after those six to eight months, I ended up moving to the Boston area where I was a single mom again. And the healthcare expenses, in addition to our rent in the Boston area …  just killed us. And things like the school meals or school lunches … we didn’t qualify for free or reduced (lunches) because on paper it looked like my income was good <laugh>, but it didn’t take into account my rent, my healthcare expenses and between Charlie and I, we were just a bottomless pit for healthcare expenses <laugh>. And so actually I started working on universal school meals in Massachusetts because I struggled with school lunch debt and we ended up winning it last summer so that was exciting.” – Rebecca Wood

 

You’ve seen a connection between health care, housing expenses and food insecurity. Talk about that. 

“What started as healthcare expenses also had me see how interrelated all of these issues are. I didn’t think about food insecurity, but because of my high healthcare expenses, I realized after we got universal school meals that – holy wow – we were a food insecure household. Like I was always counting how many cans of beans did I have in the cabinet? 

“And if she got sick and needed medication or something like that, then I would have to think, ‘okay, if I get this medication, what does that do to my grocery budget? Do I have enough food at home?’ And I always had this running count in my head of how much food we had, and I never thought anything of it until afterwards when I didn’t have to think about that anymore. 

“And I thought, ‘wow, we were food insecure.’ It was so surprising to me, <laugh> and then how they run hand-in-hand with health care or even housing for that matter, all of those things …”  – Rebecca Wood

 

Helpful Links

 

A Shocking Sacrifice: One Mom’s Fight to Change Health Care in America, Code WACK!

Rebecca Wood’s Story, Senator Bernie Sanders

Paying for your baby’s NICU stay, March of Dimes

Affording the NICU: 6 Ways to Reduce the Cost, Hand to Hold

Increased Risk of Parental Instability for Children Born Very Preterm and Impacts on Neurodevelopmental Outcomes at Age 12, National Library of Medicine

Stay At Home Moms Can Earn Money Fast with UberEATS!, Must Have Mom

Food Insecurity Was Associated With Greater Family Health Care Expenditures In The US, 2016–17, Health Affairs

Every Child Has the Right to a Free School Meal, Jacobin

 

Episode Transcript

 

Read the full episode transcript. 

 

 

Biography: Rebecca Wood

 

Rebecca Wood lived all over Virginia before relocating to Massachusetts. She graduated from James Madison University and served in Americorps with Virginia State Parks. 

Her plans for graduate school were put on hold indefinitely when her daughter, Charlie, was delivered ten hours into her twenty sixth week of gestation.

Early on, Rebecca learned she’d have to advocate for her daughter’s well-being, whether with hospitals, insurance companies, or social services. In time, she expanded her advocacy efforts into the policy arena. 

Ms. Wood’s initial civic participation was as a volunteer and, later, a Team Leader with the nonpartisan voter registration organization, HeadCount. However, her first time on Capitol Hill and her active engagement began in January of 2017 when she stepped up to join the fight to save the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Since then, Rebecca has worked with many organizations and offices on Capitol Hill. 

Her healthcare work includes rallies, protests, press conferences, lobbying, and conventions. Most notably, she told her and Charlie’s story at the introduction of Senator Sanders’ Medicare For All Act of 2017 and testified before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Pathways to Universal Coverage in June 2019.

Rebecca was recognized for her effective advocacy in 2017 by The ARC of Virginia as a Catalyst For Change and was the 2019 R. Ann Meyers Distinguished Social Work Alumni Award recipient. Currently, Ms. Wood is a 1L Public Interest Law Fellow at the University of Massachusetts School of Law. She is a 2024 Rappaport Fellow in Law and Public Policy and the president of the UMass Law NLG chapter.

 

 

Get Involved / Take Action

 

Join Healthy California Now  – a coalition working toward a California single-payer system. Individual and organizational memberships available.

Join the CalCare Campaign to win single-payer in California, sponsored by National Nurses United/California Nurses Association. 

Subscribe to Code WACK! to catch all our weekly podcast episodes.

Subscribe to HEAL California for health policy news with a California focus

 

 

 

You can also find us on ProgressiveVoices.com and NurseTalk Media.

 

This podcast is powered by HEAL California,
uplifting the voices of those fighting for healthcare justice.

____________________________________________________________________________

 

HEAL California is an independent news and information hub focused on the Medicare for All movement. We highlight the on-going injustices of our broken healthcare system and amplify the voices of those who are most impacted by it, with non-partisan news, views, podcasts and videos, 

Our Podcasts shine a light on the failures of America’s healthcare system, while explaining how Medicare for All could help.

Our Media page offers connections to experts and additional resources including links to legislation and studies.

 

Keep up with the Medicare for All movement!

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and  Instagram.
Subscribe for email updates, action alerts and more!