Eric G., New Haven, CT
I have a coworker, Mike, who is living a nightmare. He’s a construction worker in his mid-50s and needs a CPAP machine to sleep. But he doesn’t own the machine; a medical device company does, and he rents it through his insurance.
The results are dystopian. It tracks and reports his usage to the company, and they decide whether to let him keep it. The tracking system on Mike’s machine is defective and has been underreporting his hours. Now he’s being constantly harassed by the company. They want to take this vital necessity away from him and send his case to collections.
As you’d expect, Mike is extremely distressed by the situation. It’s compounding his other medical issues from a life of heavy labor. Cruel, absurd, and Orwellian predicaments like this are becoming more and more common. Mike’s nightmare is just one of many in capitalist America, as the bourgeoisie try to expand rent-seeking business models from our cars and houses to our most intimate and important medical devices. This system must end!