Community Health Centers: An Undercover Story

I had to go to Sunrise Community Health Center. I was applying for health insurance since the one we were paying for was screwing us over on prenatal. So the benefits we are paying for are not covering anything, so I need to apply for free insurance to have useful benefits – go figure. Here are a few things you might like to know should you ever decide you need to go to one of these “community” health centers:

1. When they mean community, they mean everything is shared. That mainly includes various illnesses, brought in by children who then climb all over everything (including you), the water fountain, the pens and clipboards, etc., all the while coughing.
2. Being pregnant, I have no option but to try out every toilet I come in contact with leaving me with little choice but to take part in the communal sharing.
3. Apparently children who are supposedly sick are excluded from parental discipline. Most parental interventions included a snapping of the fingers and a hiss of the child’s name.
4. Being an old building, you are set up for an exciting board in the face should you step incorrectly on the way down the hall to the bathroom.
5. If you are white, you will be the only white person there for at least the first 20 minutes. Then a middle-aged white man will come in and talk loudly on his black Razor about nasal sprays. We kinda stand out, you think?
6. Everything you do or say while meeting with the financial determination woman will either be very funny or extremely intelligent. When you ask what exactly “presumptive eligibility” means, she will say, “Wall, it’s like you is presumed to have eligibility, choo know?” And when you ask to use the bathroom (little do you know what lies ahead), she giggles a yes in response (perhaps because she knows what lies ahead).

I have two theories about low-income health clinics such as this and they are:

• If health insurance companies that were sponsored in part by your employer actually allowed you the benefit of your benefits, there would be less need for these clinics.
• This would mean less sick people sharing germs, sitting for hours in a waiting room to see the few on-staff nurses and the one on-call doctor. This, in turn, would mean more time for staff to disinfect the bathrooms. Again, less people actually needing government funding.