Death By Insurance

Death by Insurance

She sits in her car,
in the parking lot
of  the emergency room,

with the worst stomach ache of her life.

Watching the fluorescent lights rhythmically blink,
she blinks back her  tears.
Caught in a web of indecision,
she doesn’t know what to do.

She thinks about her health insurance,
and her $8,000 deductible,
and she wishes she lived in Canada or England or France,
because she needs that money for food, and rent,
and life.

Her brain exploding with uncertainty,
her stomach erupting in pain,
she stays in her car and drives home.
And she eats some antacids and goes to bed,
promising herself that if she doesn’t feel better in the morning,
she will return to the emergency room.

Her mother, devastated and ruined,
identifies her body at the morgue.
What a waste of a life, they say.
Such a shame.
If only she had gone to the hospital sooner. 













February 11, 2020

Copyright © | Year Posted 2020



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Date: 3/22/2020 9:18:00 PM
Heartbreaking in its realism, and in the "social distancing" our insurance companies place between its patients and their health care. So powerful, Peggy. I congratulate your win ~ John
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Date: 3/22/2020 12:05:00 PM
Congratulations Peggy, your poem earned a distinguished place in my PoetrySoup contest. Very well done my friend, it wasn’t easy to judge, Emile.
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Date: 3/22/2020 12:05:00 PM
Congratulations on your win, Peggy. It hurts me so dearly that this happens to so many people. Insurance's are so expansive to get and then so expansive to get them to pay. My son just went through trying to make a this same decision not to long ago.
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Date: 2/11/2020 9:25:00 PM
Yikes. Powerfully penned!
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