Think You Already Have Health Care?
Over the course of a lifetime, about 1 in 4 Americans will buy their own health insurance. Why? Because things happen, as is painfully clear right now. Maybe you get laid off. Or your company stops offering insurance. Or maybe you start your own business. The American way, right?
My friend Sarah Wildman is a freelance writer (like most reporters these days, including myself), so she had to buy insurance herself. For those of you who think the private market gets health care right, check out her story on Slate’s Double XX.
She and her husband researched the plans, found one that promised comprehensive maternity coverage (for which they paid extra, since they were hoping to have a baby at some point). They paid $500 a month for coverage. Then Sarah got pregnant and delivered a healthy baby. That’s when she found out that “maternity coverage” did not cover labor, delivery or her hospital stay.
Apparently most voters don’t want to lose their current health insurance, so they are not supporting reform. Stories like this remind us that we are clinging to a capsizing ship. Bye, bye life boat!
jean sanders said on August 04, 2009 at 3:03 pm
i loved the book, and many for Amanda’s work, she is the writer of the future…
dan said on August 08, 2009 at 9:11 pm
After many years I have learned that no matter how bad a problem is, no matter how hopeless it seems, there is always something you can do to make it much, much worse.
I am very much afraid that congress and the president are in the process of proving that lesson.
Can we have a rational debate? Can we look at the many state run health care systems across the world in a brutally honest way and see if ANYTHING actually is better?
And as an aside, can we sue the crap out of companies the misrepresent what they sell?
Supplement said on October 19, 2009 at 3:17 am
I would like to know specifically what opponents of health care reform mean by wishing to preserve choice. This is not an invitation to explain (or rant!) why they think nationalized health care will stop choice, but how private health care provides them choice
Supplement