My family and I do not have health insurance and we have not had it for most of the past 25 years. I am currently looking for ways to protect my home and retirement savings from the health care industry (such as by placing it into a trust) in order to preempt having my life financially destroyed. We never get health care exams of any kind and almost never visit the doctor, so preventative care is off the table in order to save money.
My husband and I are self-employed and we own a very small used car dealership. Many people visit us and discuss their financial situations in order to get approved for financing in order to buy a used car. A very high percentage of these people have either very bad credit or no credit and some have had to declare bankruptcy all due to medical bills–many of them have had to declare bankruptcy EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD HEALTH INSURANCE at the time!!!
It seems ridiculous to reiterate all these problems when they are so widespread and well-known. This system is so broken, that everyone knows it. What we are fighting against here is people protecting their own interests: the health care industry, the insurance industry, and above all the pharmaceutical industry. These powerful interests are looking to protect their profits at the expense of the entire nation.
There’s another obstacle to fixing the system as well–those families who are lucky enough to have one or more spouses with working for a company that subsidizes health insurance for its employees. They don’t necessarily want to see the system fixed in case things don’t improve for them. Please, let go of your self-interest and acknowledge that if more than half the people in the country are uninsured and many who are have to declare bankruptcy for health expenses anyway. Please… we need to fix this.
I would like to see it become illegal for certain types of business to earn more than a very modest profit: food, water, medicine and health care.