Who Will Fix Our Nation's Health Care System?

It’s about time I added my voice to those calling for a plan to fix our system of health care in this country. Let me tell you my story. I am a reasonably healthy 57 year old man. I am overweight like many people my age. I had asthma as a child and take a medication for a seizure disorder but have had no seizures since my mid 30’s. Other than that, not much else.

I don’t work for a major corporation, but eek our a living doing freelance film production and writing. As a self employed American I have tried to get health insurance many times. I always get send back the letter telling me I can get insurance under the Texas High Risk pool for health insurance. OK, so for some reason, one that my doctor has yet to be able to tell me, I am considered high-risk.

Here’s the problem, the “high-risk” pool is a scam. It got written into the state law as a concession to coverage for people without employer sponsored health plans. According to the law, which I can only assume was written by insurance lobbyists states that persons applying for insurance in the pool can be charged 3 times the normal rate for their coverage. Sound high? You betcha!

For me, I got a quote of $1500 a month and that was with a $5000 deductable. Now unless you are rich, or crazy, that’s a hell of a lot of money for health insurance, and that is the idea. They don’t want to insure anyone who may ever have a problem with their health. It’s all about maximizing profits and not health. $1500 a month is $18,000 a year, and ad the $5000 deductible and you come to a whopping $23,000 a year in out of pocket costs if you get the insurance and get sick.

Unless I made six figures a year, that’s impossible for me to justify and there is the problem. Why should people have to pay sometimes half their yearly income for health insurance? I invite any reader to give me a valid reason.

So here is the deal, just about every other industrialized country in the world has a health insurance program for its citizens. It means higher taxes in some cases, but in the end it would mean higher profits for American companies (with the exception of the insurance scam industry). No more strikes or negotiations over health care plans with unions. No more costly insurance plans cutting into profits. Most importantly, no more people dying because they can’t afford health care.

My advice to you? Well unless you work for a big company and expect to for the rest of your life, don’t get sick. Your sickness will be used against you as a reason for denying your insurance in the future.

That part about dying because you are poor? Well it has happened and is happening now with people I know. They have no insurance, so they must rely on the minimal public health system in our county. It is not well funded and has little room for more people, yet the number of patients they see grows daily.

Our country is sick. It is sick in a very deep and disturbing way. Our country has businesses that are profiting, big time, from the treatment of sick people. I have no problem with private health care, but I think it should be a rich person’s option and not the rule. Call me a socialist or whatever, I just know from experience that our health care system is badly broken and no one is trying to fix it.