Sunday, February 13, 2005
Scared Sick
Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren has a piece in the Houston Chronicle regarding Medical Bankruptcy.
Most of the medically bankrupt were middle-class homeowners who had been to college and had responsible jobs until illness struck.
To our surprise, half said that illness or medical bills drove them to bankruptcy. So each year, 2 million Americans those who file and their dependents face the double disaster of illness and bankruptcy.
Now the money shot:
...Comprehensive health insurance is the only real solution, for poor and middle-class Americans alike.
People are always surprised when they find out, I not only think universal governmental healthcare won't help, I think it would make healthcare much worse. I deal with Medicaid and Medicare on a nearly daily basis and they are a wreck. Only a Harvard Professor would think expanding those broken systems would be a good thing.
First off, it's no surprise that the majority of bankruptcies due to medical bills are from the middle class. The poor have Medicaid and the rich have money. Why were they surprised by these findings? What did they expect to find?
Secondly, if I'm living paycheck to paycheck, up to my neck in debt, and along comes a fractured leg or pneumonia (or worse), yeah I'm going to tell you it's medical bills that drove me to bankruptcy. Even though it was only the straw that broke the financially over-burdened camel's back.
The plastic elephant in the room is the amount of debt Americans are comfortable carrying. Between credit card debt (avg. $2,627), student loan debt (avg. $18,000), car loan debt (avg. $24,157) and home loan debt (avg. $69,227) there is no room left for sunshine between swimming and sinking. God forbid there is a rainy day, and there are always rainy days.
Instead of destroying the best healthcare in the world by throwing it down the governmental bureaucracy hole, let's try something a little crazy. let's not treat Americans like they are spoiled children that need the government to hold their hands as they stumble through life. Why don't we begin to teach people how to balance a check book and develop a budget? I know it sounds nuts and all, but it just might work.
Like the old saying goes "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish and the government won't come and take your hard won fish to divvy out as they see fit", or something like that.
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Most of the medically bankrupt were middle-class homeowners who had been to college and had responsible jobs until illness struck.
To our surprise, half said that illness or medical bills drove them to bankruptcy. So each year, 2 million Americans those who file and their dependents face the double disaster of illness and bankruptcy.
Now the money shot:
...Comprehensive health insurance is the only real solution, for poor and middle-class Americans alike.
People are always surprised when they find out, I not only think universal governmental healthcare won't help, I think it would make healthcare much worse. I deal with Medicaid and Medicare on a nearly daily basis and they are a wreck. Only a Harvard Professor would think expanding those broken systems would be a good thing.
First off, it's no surprise that the majority of bankruptcies due to medical bills are from the middle class. The poor have Medicaid and the rich have money. Why were they surprised by these findings? What did they expect to find?
Secondly, if I'm living paycheck to paycheck, up to my neck in debt, and along comes a fractured leg or pneumonia (or worse), yeah I'm going to tell you it's medical bills that drove me to bankruptcy. Even though it was only the straw that broke the financially over-burdened camel's back.
The plastic elephant in the room is the amount of debt Americans are comfortable carrying. Between credit card debt (avg. $2,627), student loan debt (avg. $18,000), car loan debt (avg. $24,157) and home loan debt (avg. $69,227) there is no room left for sunshine between swimming and sinking. God forbid there is a rainy day, and there are always rainy days.
Instead of destroying the best healthcare in the world by throwing it down the governmental bureaucracy hole, let's try something a little crazy. let's not treat Americans like they are spoiled children that need the government to hold their hands as they stumble through life. Why don't we begin to teach people how to balance a check book and develop a budget? I know it sounds nuts and all, but it just might work.
Like the old saying goes "give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him to fish and the government won't come and take your hard won fish to divvy out as they see fit", or something like that.
# posted by Joe Florida @ 1:22 PM 
