As someone who's lost nearly a half week of productive work time in the last year due to doctor visits, and whose monthly prescriptions run about $300 out of pocket...and who, over the years, has dealt with heart murmurs, severe allergies, repeated sinus infections, ear infections, broken limbs, wrenched back, sprains, and misaligned spine...I am deeply envious of a functional system. Were I not working for a small employer who actually values their employees and provides decent medical coverage, I would be BROKE now (I pay a few hundred a month, pre-tax, for my health insurance, and it's more than matched by my employer). My father's union benefits literally saved my mother's life, because her lung cancer treatments were largely covered by health insurance -- which runs $1500/month for the two of them. Had they had to cover over $50,000 in medical expenses themselves, THEY would be dead broke.
We have, at best, a barely functional system that routinely forces the poor and middle class into bankruptcy, does not serve doctors and nurses and med-techs particularly well either, and yet remains hugely profitable for the insurance industry.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-08-20 03:43 pm (UTC)We have, at best, a barely functional system that routinely forces the poor and middle class into bankruptcy, does not serve doctors and nurses and med-techs particularly well either, and yet remains hugely profitable for the insurance industry.