Montana Home Care Worker Will Participate in ABC News Event at the White House
Wednesday, June 24 -- Pat DeJong, a home care worker and member of SEIU Healthcare 775NW from Montana, has been invited to the White House to participate in an ABC News Special Event “Questions for the President: Prescription for America”. It will air on Wednesday evening from 10:00pm to 11:00pm. The show will continue at 11:30pm on Nightline.
She will be in the East Room of the White House. Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer will moderate the discussion. Pat is most likely the only home care worker who is participating. There may be a few other long-term care workers.
If she has the opportunity, Pat will ask President Obama the following question: “As a homecare worker. I provide for the most vulnerable citizens in the community. How are you going to protect people like me across the country, who struggle with the high cost of care, from premiums that are too high and out of pocket costs that I simply cannot pay for?”
Pat is in Washington, DC lobbying for Health Care Reform as part of SEIU's Grassroots Lobbyist (GRL) program.
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Here is Pat’s story.
For most of their lives, Pat and Dan DeJong lived and worked on the 500 acre DeJong family cattle ranch in Southwest Lincoln County. Dan was the fourth generation of DeJongs to run the family cattle ranch. With 110 head of cattle, the ranch was the cornerstone of the DeJong family. Dan grew up there and raised his family there. He worked and lived on that land.
Dan was always a very proud man. He never wanted a handout, was always willing to work hard, made sacrifices, and provided for his family. He donated much of the ranch to the Montana Land Reliance to ensure the land would remain the way he remembered it as a child. The ranch meant everything to him.
In 2000 he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. At the time, the family did not have any health insurance. Being a proud man, Dan wanted to pay for the costs out of his own pocket without government assistance.
Medical bills, however, soon began to stack up. Swallowing his pride, Dan applied for food stamps and Medicaid. Up to that time, it was one of the hardest decisions he had ever been forced to make. He was denied the food stamps and was only eligible for Medicaid if he was willing to accept a lien on his ranch. As the medical bills continued to spiral out of control, Pat and Dan made a decision that four generations of his family had been able to avoid: they decided to sell the family cattle ranch.
Pat knows that selling the ranch devastated her husband. The cancer had ravaged his body, but selling the ranch broke his spirit. His condition worsened and in 2007 - after losing his fight to save the ranch - he lost his fight against the cancer. He was 63.
Two years later, Pat still does not have health insurance. She continues to work as a caregiver in Libby, providing care to the most vulnerable citizens in her community. Reflecting on what it has been like to live without health insurance – and keeping in mind what she and her husband went through - she said, “I have been without [health insurance] for so long, I have just put it out of my head.”