The Public Healthcare Debate

[GeorgiaMa'am]

Originally Posted by Kätzchen

The only time I ever had health coverage, was when my employer was responsible for my health coverage after I was hurt on the job (near death car wreck in my employer's car). I'm sure the bills for my health coverage were in the high thousands, if not cresting past a million in fees. . . . Health insurance is a proverbial money pit. I'm lucky that I have been in fairly good health all my life, up until I was hurt on the job. I was in my late 50s when that happened. Injuries in your latter years can cause significant impacts. I know it did for me.

Lucky is right.

I have had good health insurance most of my life, except for a few years in my 20s when I was self-employed. Like most 20 year olds, I thought nothing really bad would ever happen to me. Luckily for me, nothing really did until recently in my 50s - in the past six months I have been hospitalized three times, for multiple days each time - once for pneumonia, once for a pulmonary embolism and once for gout. I have no idea how much the bills that I have to pay are going to be for the most recent rounds of hospital stay, although the one from six months ago ended up only costing me about $1500, plus the payments that come out of my paycheck (which are pretty low) due to my excellent health insurance. It would have been about $60,000 otherwise.

Somehow, we are going to have to convince young, healthy adults that healthcare is a lifetime investment.