Hello,

My name is Brianna Lorenzen, and I am 22 years old and living with a pre-existing condition that could effect my chances of ever getting health insurance for myself once I'm finished with school, get a full time job, and become independent. My pre-existing condition is Ideopathic Rheumatoid Arthritis. It is a genetic disease that I got from my Mother's side of the family. This condition that I have is a life-threatening illness, and it will get worse as I get older and won't be able to get the medication I need in order to survive. Sure, you can say that I can exercise and have a better dietary plan, but sadly that won't cut it for me. I can't always workout because I always wakeup in the morning in pain and have to take my medication in order to be better. I can't eat most foods or drink most drinks because it will affect my stomach, and I can only eat and drink stuff that is part of my diet. I take an infusion once every six weeks in order to make myself feel better, and that alone costs about $10,000 an infusion, and am very grateful for having the assistance I need in order to pay only a small deductible in order to take my medication to help myself live a better life.

This disease that I have will affect my chances of possibly never being able to conceive children, it could affect any part of my body, and it could also one day kill me if I don't take my medications everyday for it. No one knows this, not even my friends, but I have struggled with this disease since I was 4 years old, and had my first major fleur up when I was 9 years old. I was out of school for a whole month because of my knees losing balance when I standup and walking up the stairs. I almost became crippled, and was almost losing my ability to ever walk again. It was the most hurtful time of my life, and I thank god everyday that I will never have to go through it again. Since I've started this infusion of Remicaid and Nabumatone, I haven't had a fleur up since I was 9 years old, and that was about 12 years ago. I had a moment of clarity with myself last summer when I decided to stop taking Remicaid for awhile to see if I could live without it and just try to live a normal life with just the Nabumatone. It helped for a little bit, but it eventually started to catch up with me. My knees started to become shocked, as if someone were to strike me a few times with a stun gun and make the tingling sensation go through my knees and into my feet. I couldn't even drive my car without having to feel pain within 10 minutes of driving towards my destination. The pain started to get even worse, which led to my boyfriend, sister and parents having to drive me to places because of how much pain my knees were in. By August, the pain became excruciating, and I called my doctor saying that I needed to go back on it because my disease and life depended on this infusion that I take every six weeks. Ever since I started it back up, I have been feeling amazing and starting to become more of myself again. All my life I have been dealing with this disease, and I know there are people out there who have it worse than I do, but I'm grateful for all the assistance I get to help me afford my medications and doctors visits.

This is just my life- everyday I go through this, and everyday I am grateful for having the law President Obama passed a few years ago to have kids stay on their parents health plans until they are 25. If it wasn't for this law and this assistance program that helps me pay, I could be either dead or in the hospital right now fighting for my life. We need to have affordable healthcare for everyone. We can't let our brothers, sisters, aunts uncles, grandparents or even parents out on the street to die because they couldn't afford the medicine they needed or the emergency C-Section that could possibly kill the mother of the child being born. We can't let that happen if we don't have affordable healthcare for everyone in America. It shouldn't matter your race, class, how much money you have or anything, we all need to rely on affordable healthcare and help one another. The last few weeks I have witnessed people having to make Gofundme accounts in order to pay for chemotherapy for their child or a transplant that is needed for their father. What happened to this country? We can help others, but we can't our citizens out with wanting to be better and healthier like every other American who isn't as sick as them.

President Trump and Congress shouldn't be making healthcare more expensive, they should be making it affordable. Medicine is expensive, and so are all the operations and infusions that I and every other person younger and older than me have to go through in order to survive in this world. We need a change, and that change should start with all of us wanting to help our brothers and sisters out with wanting the proper medications to help them. We don't want to watch anymore news stories in the coming years from boys and girls from newborn to grown-adults dying because they can't or were waiting too long to get seen by a doctor or waiting for a operation that came too late. No one should be treated like this, not even me or my children. I wouldn't want this for them and neither would you want it for them. Instead of making it seem like it is the sick persons fault for not having affordable health insurance, how about we all come together and help make health insurance more affordable and available to the public.