An open letter to God-knows-whom in the medical and legislative community:

Why is it that the middle class is constantly abused? My son needs tubes for his ears. He has constant ear infections; the doctor told us that the fluid in his ears is likely impairing his ability to hear, and thus talk, as well as his ability to walk because his balance is altered. In the past 4-5 months, my son has been a maximum of 6 days at a stretch without antibiotics. He would finish the antibiotics and within a week, we were back at the doctor. We never balked at the constant expense of doctor visits and medications. We followed the recommendations of the pediatrician and the ENT and scheduled a date for what we were told is a 10-minute procedure. We get a call 36 hours prior to his appointment stating that his procedure will cost upwards of $4000 oop and that this needs to be paid up front. We don’t have that kind of money. And I am so angry that I am being forced to make the choice that my child will not receive the appropriate medical care because we can’t afford it. We’re not poor. We are a two-parent, two-income household. We both hold master’s degrees. I am a public school teacher and my husband is a programmer; we have two children. We are not living-beyond-our-means and we DO have insurance that we contribute to each and every month. And yet here I am, faced with the difficult choice, do I feed my family or get my child the health care that he needs? If we were a bit more well-off I could pay this out of pocket without a problem; if we were a bit worse off, we’d get all our medical care for free through Medicaid. As it is, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place and I am so angry and so disappointed with the state of my nation. My son deserves better than this, all of our children do. We canceled the procedure. We will continue to forcibly restrain our 11-month old twice a day to ply him with antibiotics and ibuprofen while he screams and struggles. I will continue to wake in the night to nurse away the pain when the medicine wears off and I will cry to see my son in struggle every day because we, as a class, have been forgotten.