Online Retailer, 56, Insured

Interviewed January 2019

(oil on canvas, 30 ins. x 48 ins.)

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In the wake of the 2008 recession, Jeff Jeans and his wife closed their small real estate business. He had no health insurance. When he lost his voice in 2011, he tried four times to get insurance. He was denied four times. In 2012, Jeff was diagnosed with throat cancer and given six months to live. Jeff, who had been a fierce opponent of "Obamacare," suddenly needed it.

Jeff is not extraordinary because he damned healthcare reform before he got sick, and then grasped onto it to save his own life. Jeff is a hero because he had the courage to be fiercely honest with himself. He did not hold tight to his ideology and rationalize his use of ACA insurance. Instead, he looked deeply at who he was: "I was self-centered and uncompassionate. No empathy for other people. I was an opinionated Libertarian. I used to read only right-leaning news. I have a background in economics and finance." And he let go: "If I've been wrong about healthcare," he said, "what else was I wrong about? Obamacare saved my life." Then he shared his story in public, confronting Paul Ryan, then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, at a town hall in 2017...not for himself alone, but for every person fighting for life in this country.

If all of us were as honest about what it’s like to need healthcare, if we, too, bared our souls for the greater good, we might rattle legislators into making real change that benefits people.