Maggie's Farm

Re: Health insurance. I wonder what that $335 a month health insurance covered for that single person? More to the point, what did it exclude? Did it cover mental health and substance abuse treatment, if needed? Did it cover any pre-existing conditions? After a year on the new plan? Or ever? Did it cover prescriptions? Did it have yearly maximum numbers of visits on "luxury" items like psychotherapy, physical therapy? I wonder.

In general, only the perfectly healthy can afford to buy private health insurance. Anyone with a preexisting condition or two in their family is turned down, or charged an exorbitant premium, or given gutted coverage that specifically and indefinitely excludes the condition that they or their dependent suffer from.

And that blogger is just plain snide, implying that people who say they can't afford health insurance are just improvident managers who prefer to buy an I-pod to health insurance. Cheap shot.

I remember going thru a pregnancy when my husband was unemployed and we could not afford health insurance. My obgyn took care of me and said he would wait for the money. When the baby died, but I never miscarried, I went into surgery not knowing how we would pay the thousands of dollars. We were not buying electronic goodies. We were living on beans and rice, and wearing nothing except thrift shop clothes, heating only one room in the house, walking everywhere, etc.

The other issue that has to be addressed is that the health of the poor in this country (duh) is much worse than that of the upper middle class. They are not as attractive actuarily to private insurers, duh. Oh, and their hourly wage sucks. That is the real reason they can't afford decent health insurance, not a fondness for Ipods.