David Sirota: Health Care As the New Terrorist to Fear

from OurFuture.org:



Health Care As the New Terrorist to Fear
By David Sirota

May 12th, 2008 - 7:44pm ET


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Thanks to America's health care system, today was a very stressful day for me. My story is so typical as to be boring - which is a really sad commentary.

This morning, while thumbing through some routine paperwork, my wife discovered that I have no health insurance. Without going into the details, we missed a bi-annual deadline for payment - a deadline that the company buried in fine print, and one that the company didn't even bother to tell us was approaching, or even missed after the fact. They just ended my coverage, with not so much as a letter or a phone call.

Fortunately for us, we discovered the situation before a 60-day continuity-of-coverage window closes, and I got temporary insurance. Of course, for bureaucratic reasons that I don't understand, I'm not allowed to re-enroll in the same plan I thought I was on. I have to wait to do that. Put another way, the health care company that had been gouging me, and then tossed me away without so much as a peep, is perfectly fine leaving me without coverage - even if I'm willing to pay for it.

My initial reaction this morning was raw panic. Until the situation was resolved, I felt like I was going to periodically break down and cry because I felt so completely helpless. But now that the initial shock has passed, I can say I'm lucky in all of this.

I am a sole proprietor so I get gouged on health care, but my wife and I have worked hard to save diligently to pay for coverage through her graduate school (and to those who have flippantly claimed that because I'm a columnist and writer I make a whole ton of money, I will only say that the term "struggling writer" didn't come out of thin air - I ain't complainin' but I also ain't swimming in money). We have the resources, and thankfully, we caught this problem in time. But for every one of me who discovered the problem and had the resources to rectify it, there are probably 10 or 20 who either never figure out the problem until it's too late, can't pay to rectify the situation - or both. Just as frightening is how tiny an error you can make to watch your entire health care safety net be ripped away from you and your family. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/health-care-new-terrorist-fear