As a young, self-employed writer and sometime-musician, I had no health insurance. If I got sick, I waited it out. If I hurt myself, I hoped for the best. Bicycling home one afternoon from a part time job — when you’re a young person in the arts, you almost always have a part-time job — I was hit by a car and the middle finger on my right hand was cut off. Bad luck. But the good luck was that the finger was jammed down into my hand so I didn’t lose it somewhere on the road. Two specialists were called to the hospital to reattach the finger. When they saw my mangled hand, one said, “Oh, this’ll be interesting.” I convinced them to use local anesthetic so I could watch them operate. They set up mirrors to give me a better view.
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Because I didn’t have the money to pay the various hospital, surgical, and laboratory fees, I soon had bill collectors knocking at my door. I explained that I was waiting to see if the driver’s insurance company would pay. As time passed, the bill collectors grew more threatening. I contacted a lawyer who agreed to represent me at no cost, taking only a percentage of whatever compensation I might be awarded. The day before trial was to begin, the insurance company called to settle. They’d pay all the medical costs and I would receive $2,000. Of that sum, $1,400 would go to the lawyer and $600 to me, plus a new bicycle.
When I married, the financial issues were the same. My wife was a self-employed potter. Between the two of us we could just get by. But we had to have health insurance. We bought a policy with a $10,000 deductible and 80-20 coverage, which meant that after the deductible was paid, the company would cover 80% of any further costs. But 20% for us to pay could still be a lot. Imagine a million-dollar bill for long-term cancer treatment — not an unimaginable amount these days. We’d need to come up with $10,000 plus the $198,000 that was the 20% not covered by the policy. We could never pay that. Just hope for the best. And worry.
When our daughter was born, we knew we had to have better health insurance. Taking a risk for ourselves was one thing, but such risk-taking was unacceptable to us as parents. I called my mother and asked her, “When we were kids, what did you do about health insurance?”
“We never had health insurance,” she replied. “We couldn’t afford it until you were almost out of high school and both of us finally had jobs that included health care.”
“I never knew that,” I told her. “I guess I never thought about it.”
“We were lucky,” she said. “Neither you nor your sister was sick much. Penicillin shots when you had ear aches was about it, and we could make monthly payments to the doctor. Same with having your tonsils taken out, not at the hospital but the doctor’s office. We made payments. You didn’t need any special dental care, no braces or anything. And things didn’t cost so much in those days.” She paused, then repeated, “We were lucky.”
“But didn’t you worry?”
“I worried all the time.”
That was my mother — a person who did the best she could and kept her worries to herself.
I hung up and decided to get a job that included health insurance. It’s a decision a lot of Americans make — to have a job more for the health coverage than the salary or the love of the work. I would from that point on be only a part-time writer and musician. But I’d have health care.
Really, it was fine — I loved my work as a teacher and was pleased as I grew in that capacity, understanding more fully how to serve my students, how to see what each young person needed in order to grow. And, in the end, I think the art I made was better for the work I did, less divorced than it otherwise might have been from the daily concerns we all have. Less precious.
Still, I don’t understand why we haven’t been able to develop a publicly funded universal health care system that provides coverage for everyone in our country, that offers equity in the provision of medical service, where no one lives or dies as a result of having or not having money. It’s wrong to tie health care to an individual’s ability to pay and to leave some people behind.
Wyoming, with its huge savings surplus and low population, is in a unique situation and could be the only state to provide health insurance. I never hear it discussed, but think of the business growth it could create. Certainly. It would not be for everyone and there would have to be some specific requirements but I think it should be considered.
Obamacare provided low cost health insurance for tens of millions Americans and has been trashed by Republicans and Conservatives and subsidies have been reduced and eliminated. We already have a great solution that has been harmed by politics.
While I believe this country allows all of us to chase our dreams and take advantages of the opportunities provided, nowhere does it guaranty you an income and sustaining employment because you choose something not economically viable. I’d love to be an artist or writer but anything artsy I create is terrible and my writing not far behind. In order to support my family I had to acquire the skills that allowed me to participate in the economy vs relying on the government through a myriad of programs to support my dreams. That’s not the government’s role. It is not my neighbors responsibility to fund my dreams through his tax dollars.
The ACA was doomed from the start because it was created by politicians for politicians to pander to the masses. As soon as Obama said we could keep our doctors and lower our costs I knew we were doomed – after Nancy said we could find out what’s in it after the 2,500 pages passed into law. It was bad legislation then and even worse now.
The system is screwed up due to many factors. The legal lottery with malpractice claims, the administrative burden and paperwork imposed by government, cost of medical school, the cost of all these magical drugs and procedures, people going to the ER because because they cannot take care of themselves properly, even Medicare/Medicaid is rampant with fraud – just ask Minnesota. Sure, poke at the health insurance industry, but keep in mind that rates/premiums are based on the cost of services provided. The health insurance industry plays one small part in a bigger debacle brought to you by various players including the very same government that has this system all jacked up to begin with.
For the comment about Medicare being $202 a month – that’s your cost after you have been paying a percentage of your salary into the system all of your working life – as well as your employer(s). In no way does that reflect the true cost of the insurance. The only thing that makes Medicare work is the billions in payroll tax dollars already funding it.
Lastly, nobody I have ever talked to has spoke highly of the Canadian health care system – aunts, uncles, cousins, clients……..some spending years waiting for medical procedures in Canada that we can have done in the next 2-3 weeks. Sure, it costs less……when you can get it.
Why don’t we have universal, free health care in the US? There are probably more reason for that fact than any one human can possibly know and understand, as health care and the unimaginably immense industries that have been built up in the field are incalculably complex. Much of that complexity is deliberate as it prevents legislators from significantly changing the lay of the land, that in turn shields vested interests from the risk of losing their money generating ability.
My observation though is that we Americans [U.S. Americans that is] are far too spoiled, and too delusional in our belief that every single person deserves access to the best, most expensive treatment and medication known to man [I don’t know what everyone did to “deserve” such access]. This attitude is a significant contributor to the fact that we have, by far, the most expensive health care in the world, without commensurately high comparative health outcomes.
Voters in the US would never accept the rationing of health care that exists in every country that offers universal health care, and there isn’t enough wealth in the country to fund universal free care that fully covered unlimited access to the very best treatment and medications for everyone in need of them.
“There isn’t enough wealth in this country to fund universal health care”? Have you been following the expenditures related to the Venezuela sashay or our latest little adventure in the Gulf region? There is obviously plenty of money in this country for healthcare, just not the political will.
Medicare for all is the answer. $202.00 is taken out of my Social Security check each month to pay for Medicare. At that price, it could be sold to those who can afford it based on income. There could be a process for adjusting the price so that all could afford it.
Health care insurance distorts the market. Get rid of all health care insurance and make the providers adjust to the market.
Despite the FauX News propaganda about the ACA being a “failure”, it was not destined to fail in its original concept as they would have you believe. Both of Wyoming’s Republican Senators at the time (one now deceased and the other still there, a doctor even) were vehemently opposed to it, as were almost all the Freedom Caucus Republicans, who supposedly did not want “big government” running our health care. What none of them wanted to acknowledge is that big government has been running health care (Medicare) since LBJ instituted it in 1967 and it still works just fine, as do similar health care systems in Canada and the UK. Every system has problems, but their actual problem with the ACA’s original concept, was that it costs big Pharma and Medical Insurance conglomerates money. They would rather have your tax dollars go to those billionaire corporate donors to stop “trickle bleeding” their outrageous fortunes, rather than going toward you and your family being more healthy. Just like they have done with the health care proposals in their “Big Beautiful Bill”, after the Republicans got through with the ACA, it was designed to make Insurance companies billions and give you a handful of b******t instead of usable insurance. When Loyd’s of London first applied the concept of insurance to British shipping, it was based on the undertaking of “risk”. Usually the volume of money taken in, outweighed the risk of money paid out. Nowadays the company does not take the risk, you do, just as we all did growing up, by paying for so-called “coverage” up front, with high deductibles and out of pocket expenses that truly mean no coverage for the average income earner. It’s hard to imagine what the ACA would have become if there had been no skewed lobbying and political diatribes to stifle it’s original concept and morph it into a corporate monster plan simply to make rich people richer and stifle the Obama Administration, as the “Grim Reaper” Mitch McConnell said he would do (his words not mine).
Not only has it not failed it has been a tremedous success despite the political lies and distortions that worked against implementation and continues to spread falsehoods. It’s OK to spend trillions on jets we don’t need , but helping Americans get access to better health care is a terrible idea. Politics and Politicians are the biggest impediments to a better life here and around the world.
Agree 100% David. I have Canadian relatives that will vouch for their secure life style under universal care where no one has to worry that they will be bankrupted by medical costs. The only US version of universal health care is Medicare for the fortunate that live long enough to get it. Without Medicare, medical costs would bankrupt many seniors.
For the huge costs our government spends on policing the rest of the world and making sure the wealthy are compensated for their political support, we could also have a country that looks after its citizens by providing the security of affordable health care.
Your description of the perils young families and underpaid workers face trying to afford their basic needs in the face of crippling medical costs can be repeated by the majority of people in our country.
It is not socialism to provide the benefit of universal health care; it is simply the humanitarian way a democracy should govern.
We haven’t developed a national healthcare system because the republicans fight against it. I’m sure they receive CHECKS from big medicine to fight against any system that would reduce their profits. Our politics don’t work for the common man.
Universal “healthcare” in Canada, UK, etc. has major problems. It is NOT an “obvious solution”.
Greed was written into the Obama/Affordable Care Act. Greed for the Medical Industrial Complex (Ins. Corps., Big Pharma, etc.) Take the Corporate greed out of healthcare that was put into it 16 years ago and reforms can advance.
No one seems to be able to admit that The ACA has been an ABSOLUTE FAILURE.
The “corporate greed” was in the system before the ACA was implemented. Remember receiving a denial of care statement for having a “Pre-existing Condition”? The ACA does have issues but it is better than was was in place prior.
Healthcare insurance for regular people with crazy large deductibles and copays because that’s all that they can afford is not realistic healthcare insurance. As the writer brought up when they had a 20/80 plan and if they got cancer or some other large cost health issue they wouldn’t have been able to pay the deductible and 20 percent copay even though they had insurance without having to declare bankruptcy. And how many jobs today don’t even offer health insurance?
Instead of just saying the ACA is a failure suggest some ideas for a solution. No one should have to think through if they can afford to go to a medical professional when healthcare is needed. No one should have to declare bankruptcy because they had an unplanned healthcare emergency. The existing USA healthcare system is incredibly inefficient, confusing, and slanted to benefit the healthcare insurance industry. There’s a reason why the rest of the world does not use a system like the current USA healthcare system.
Remember where the ACA originated? Heritage Foundation. President Obama adopted a right-wing think tank idea because he thought he could build consensus to help solve the nation’s problem by accepting a Republican approach, a right-wing capitalist solution. Boy, was he wrong! The hysterical backlash against the ACA revealed that Republicans were less interested in intellectual debate than they were in denying a black Democrat a victory point, even if that meant hurting their own constituents. The first blow against the ACA was the Republicans striking down the individual mandate. Without the requirement for everyone, including the young and healthy, to purchase insurance, the ACA was destined to fail. Now we can all see that insurance companies do not add any value, but instead act as overpriced middle men adding delay and red tape, sucking up money that should go to pay healthcare professionals, but instead siphons off tens of millions in CEO salaries and places shareholder profit above patient care. No country has a perfect healthcare system, but every other civilized country has figured out a way to provide better care at half the price we pay. We should be humble enough to learn from better ideas.
LOL, Lisa. You dont remember the “closed door” theatrics???
Harry Reid/Nancy Pelosi, Democrat only, closed door “negotiations”. followed by “We have to pass it to know what’s in it” statements by Speaker Pelosi.
We are in the middle stage of a healthcare Hegelian Dialectic.
Problem reaction solution
I believe you, but dont try and pretend that Democrats alone forced the ACA into existence, whether legitimately or for show.
I’m not really that informed on how legislation works on all levels of government. However, several years ago, a state law was passed to make people practicing in my profession become certified. After that point, the complex regulations were to be developed and that’s where it got down to the details with additional public input and comment. I expect that that was what Nancy Pelosi was referring to when she made that comment. That makes sense.
Most if not all developed countries have lower costs, by far, and better outcomes with a nationalized healthcare system. The proof is out there. All you have to do is investigate it.
Canada’s system is so good, they’re about to surpass people cured with people euthanized.
I have an aunt and uncle that just offed themselves together in Alberta. Neither was terminal or non functioning. My Aunt did wait 2.5 years for a hip replacement while in excruciating pain.
Anything that requires the talent/labor/money (healthcare) of someone else is not a right.