Highlights In Health Care’s Inequities
At 49, Jacqueline Church Simonds and her husband Larry are self-employed and struggling with rising health care costs that buy them limited coverage.
After checking into a health savings account, Simonds opted for COBRA over being uninsured. She is like many other Americans in the middle class who wrestle with the costs they pay versus the coverage they receive, and the growing gap in between the two. This prevalent concern has begun to hone Americans’ opinions and beliefs regarding what kind of health care reform they would like to see in the near future.
Some specific principles that received 80% support from Americans in a recent Consumer Reports survey concern people like Simonds who lose coverage when they change jobs or become self-employed. Another key issue most people would like to see incorporated into reform involves protection from financial ruin after suffering a major medical episode.
Like Simonds, 53-year-old cancer survivor Donna Smith finds that this aspect of the current system isn’t working. Her husband Larry also suffers from serious artery complications. While being fully covered, the two fell under an immediate burden of medical debt which caused them to declare bankruptcy four years ago. Even though it destroyed her credit, for Smith, it was the only option in order to keep her coverage.
Although she did make an appearance in Michael Moore’s 2006 movie “Sicko,” it was unpaid and accomplished little for her particular situation. Sometime afterward she got a contract job, Larry qualified for Medicare, and she began efforts to rebuild her credit.
Gary Nestrick, a 52-year-old emergency room nurse was financially burdened earlier this year after a series of abdominal pains. His PPO left him paying $1200 out of a $5480 bill. Nestrick feels that Americans are carrying a disproportionate fraction of the nation’s health care costs.
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