Stories

Ana Rodriguez

Ana Rodriguez, 40, has been working for airline contractors for over a decade. In her time working at Los Angeles International Airport, her jobs have included scanning baggage for dangerous items, searching planes prior to flight, and assisting passengers with disabilities. Day in and day out, Ana works behind the scenes to make sure that our airport runs as efficiently as possible. Ana’s work, like the work of thousands of her fellow employees, is critical to the safety and security of LAX.

Two years ago, in July 2007, a series of events changed Ana’s life forever. During a routine checkup, she discovered that she was two months pregnant. Shortly after, she suffered a miscarriage which doctors later traced to tumors on her ovaries. Ana had emergency surgery a few days after her miscarriage, which cost $24,000. Even though she had the limited insurance her employer offered, she found that it only paid a little more than half of the total cost. Despite barely earning enough to pay for rent and food, Ana now has to contend with owing $11,000 to debt collectors for her surgery, which has damaged her credit rating.

After her surgery, Ana almost lost her job because she was unable to work. She struggled to provide for herself and her daughter, Karen, who has never been eligible for health care coverage from her mother’s employers. Instead, Ana would take her daughter to the emergency room any time Karen was sick enough to require medical attention. Though she was finally able to find a state program that would cover twice-annual doctor’s visits for Karen, Ana still has to hope that neither she nor her daughter ever becomes seriously ill again.

Maria Guzman

Maria Guzman works at LAX as a wheelchair attendant for passengers with disabilities. Her duty is to see to the safety of the thousands of passengers who pass through her terminal every day. Her husband works for the same company, and together they have five children. Even though Maria and her husband both work at LAX, they have been unable to get their children health insurance. Instead, they take their children to Tijuana, Mexico once a month for medical treatment; “Everything is cheaper in Tijuana,” Maria says, simply because she cannot afford to pay doctors’ bills in the US. Only recently has she been able to get her children on a state-funded program which allows for occasional doctor’s visits.

“I stress a lot about health insurance,” she adds, and it’s not just because of her children: five months ago, Maria was diagnosed with diabetes. Though she has changed her diet, she can only get medical treatment in Mexico. Maria does not use the health insurance plan she can purchase through her employer because it has high out-of-pocket costs and often requires people to pay for their own medicine. “It’s not insurance,” she says, describing her inability to afford her employer’s coverage. “It doesn’t cover anything.” She also suffers from back and knee pain, which she is unable to take care of. Even on days where she is in pain, she must work, because she has fewer work hours than she has requested. “It would help me a lot” to have healthcare, she says, because then she could treat her diabetes and get good coverage for her children without relying on state assistance.

Luz Maria Flores

Luz Maria Flores, 56, has worked for airline contractors for twelve years. She is divorced and has two grown children. Her employer used to provide insurance which Luz Maria says was very expensive. She purchased it, but discovered that none of the health facilities listed on her insurance card actually accepted her company’s insurance. Although her employer has recently switched to a new insurance provider, Luz Maria has not purchased it because she says that though it is slightly less expensive than the old plan, it only covers five doctor’s visits a year and pays a mere 25% of all medical costs.

Luz Maria knows better than most how dangerous lack of health insurance can be: in 2000, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She sought out county services, but had trouble obtaining eligibility. Meanwhile, her employer made taking time off to seek out county services almost impossible: “You don’t have time. If you call off, the next day they’ll call you up and suspend you.” Knowing all the while that her cancer could spread, Luz Maria had to find a way to have surgery at the county hospital. If she had had health insurance, Luz Maria could have had her surgery much sooner. “We really need health insurance,” she says, remembering her fight for her life.

Luz Maria’s health problems did not end in 2000. Now, she has been told by county doctors that she needs surgery because of deteriorated ligaments in her knee. Luz Maria feels her knee injury comes in part from years of carrying baggage and assisting passengers in wheelchairs. Ironically, a woman whose job has been helping the disabled may end up in a wheelchair herself. While she is on disability now, it expires in less than a month, and doctors have told her that she cannot renew it. Luz Maria knows that she is one of many workers who suffer from injuries which they cannot get treated. “Once or twice a year, they take us out to eat and think that that’s enough,” Luz Maria says of her employer. Luz Maria knows she has to have the surgery, but is afraid to do so: she will have to spend a long time recovering, and during that time she will not be earning the money she needs to survive.