This spring when I joined most of the country in my first quarantine, I noticed a commonality about some friends and colleagues who had quarantine tips – they are cancer survivors. They’ve been there before of course.
One colleague said it’s been five years since their last quarantine following a stem cell treatment in their early twenties. On doctors orders they self quarantined in their house for three months, practiced social distancing with the few family members they had contact with during that time and felt like they should buy stock in Clorox wipes since they used them on everything that anyone else had come in contact with. Sounds familiar.
During my own recent quarantine I was healthy and able to continue working full time from home. This was not the case for my cancer survivor friends who spent their time at home recuperating from surgeries, in and out of the hospital for radiation treatments daily for several weeks, and suffering from nausea and fatigue following chemotherapy treatments.
The hardest thing I had to deal with was that my three elementary aged kids were home all the time due to the school closures, making it challenging to productively work from home. Well, that and the financial uncertainty we faced when my husband’s work disappeared overnight due to the pandemic and he joined the millions of people making their first ever unemployment claim in March.
This is, again, familiar territory for those who have received a cancer diagnosis, all of a sudden not only is there a scary health threat on their doorstep but there is also sudden, prolonged financial insecurity. In addition to the direct cost of related medical bills, those battling cancer also miss work, sometimes for months at a time, often their family members who help them with treatments and recovery also take time out from work. Since two-thirds of working people lack access to paid time off to care for themselves or a family member, this lost time at work generally translates into loss of income.
Cancer survivors are likely to become unemployed in the months or years following diagnosis, about a third of breast cancer survivors for example are unemployed three years following diagnosis.
When my family lost income due to the sudden upending of our normal lives by COVID-19, Gov. Chris Sununu and the federal government each took action to establish temporary paid leave to make sure families like mine were able to access partial wage replacement if they lost work due to the pandemic or were unable to work due to needing to take care of family members who were suffering from the coronavirus or home due to school closures. This helped dramatically, blunting the worst financial impacts of total loss of income and making it easier to follow public health guidance to stay home and recover fully if you had been exposed to COVID-19.
Here’s where the similarities end, at least so far.
Families who get cancer, or suffer from any other chronic illness or disability have not had Gov. Sununu or the federal government spring into action to make sure they have the kind of financial safety net created for families experiencing financial insecurity from COVID-19, but they could, and overwhelmingly, public sentiment is that they should.
More than 80% of Granite Staters support establishing a program to ensure all working people have access to paid family and medical leave when they need it.
The United States is one of just a few countries in the world that does not have a family and medical leave system in place. Here, if you lose your income due to a lay off, we have unemployment insurance. If you lose your income due to an injury on the job, you can get partial wage replacement from workers compensation. But if you lose your income due to an injury outside of work or any other health condition, you’re out of luck.
Eight states have addressed this by passing legislation to establish family and medical leave insurance programs.
New Hampshire has passed similar legislation, twice. The first time was last year, Gov. Sununu vetoed that paid family leave bill and even auctioned off a copy of his veto, and the flags that flew over the State House when he vetoed it, at a Republican fundraiser almost exactly one year ago.
The second time paid leave legislation passed in New Hampshire was this spring. That bill, House Bill 712, is expected to land on Gov. Sununu’s desk any day now.
Gov. Sununu’s signature is the one thing needed to ensure all families in New Hampshire have access to paid family and medical leave when they need it. Some of us needed it during the pandemic but many families will face the same need due to a cancer diagnosis, disability or any number of other health emergencies.
I hope Gov. Sununu doesn’t stand in the way and veto paid leave again. I hope he has learned some lessons from his first quarantine about the financial insecurity unexpected health threats can wreak on New Hampshire families and will sign House Bill 712 into law.
(Amanda Sears is director of the Campaign for a Family Friendly Economy.)