Health Care Stories - Why we need change now
Posted on July 14th, 2008 by Levana Layendecker in Tell Us Your Story
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We received so many stories that highlight the need for quality, affordable health care we all can count on. We will be posting the 1,000 + stories that we received later this week. In the meantime, here are some quotations from the people who wrote in so far.
"I have what is considered good health insurance through my employer. I had a medically necessary surgical procedure this year that is listed as "fully covered" under my insurance plan. I'm still required to pay over $2000 of the cost of that surgery as "co-pays." That is nearly 10% of my yearly salary!
Honestly, I can barely afford health care even with "good" insurance. I deserve better."
-Kristen, Iowa City, IA
"I am 25 years old and I do not have any insurance at all. I don't make enough money at my job to buy my own and I do not get enough hours at work to be covered by the company. I have needed dental surgery for the past two years but I have no way of paying for it. I am worried that the damage that will be done will be beyond repair by the time I get to have the surgery. If we lived in a country where a hard-working person could afford health care, I would not be in this situation and neither would so many others."
-Brittany, Lawndale, CA
"Health Insurance companies should not be allowed to opt out of paying claims for proven treatments secured in highly-respected hospitals. And desperately ill clients should not have to suffer the pain and indignity of having to wrestle their rights out of greedy insurance companies!"
-J. Gordon, Midwest City, OK
"Just a few weeks before my 27th birthday, I had open-heart surgery.
I was amazed, as most people are when they entire this byzantine system of ours, how much I was expected to do, in addition to grappling with my diagnosis. Spend time with my family? No, I couldn't afford to.
Surely we can do better in the U.S."
-Anna, Bellevue, WA
"I have 7 month old twins, work for a non-profit agency, and my husband is self employed. We pay $900 out of pocket each month to ensure our family of four (one hundred dollars more than our mortgage). Neither my husband nor I make a tremendous amount of money…over 1/4 of our monthly income is spent on keeping our family insured."
-Tracy, Chicago, IL
"Fortunately I have adequate health care, but know too many who are not so fortunate, and see too many children without. More of us who have good health care must join with those who do not to ensure that all are equally covered."
-Ruth, Fairway, KS
Privatized health care like privatized social security is not a way to have equal fair coverage.
Only SINGLE-PAYER (which Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers support) will give us a system
like other western democracies enjoy and it would also save money for employees and businesses so they'd earn more by not having to arrange health plans.
We don't want to have taxpayers pay for the insurance industries profits. The insurance agencies
have made us the poorest covered and have not prevented preventable deaths because of their
bottom line preventing treatment.
You're a bogus outfit if you don't support single-payer.