COBRA makes a limited kind of sens for those who've made enough to pay for it while unemployed.
Not a clue what percentage of workers losing their jobs pay for COBRA, but I'm betting its a very small percentage of all those who lose their jobs.
Health care saving plans?
Are you serious?
Who the **** makes enough money to save for that heart attack or major health problem that sooner or later we all experience?
Maybe pne out of a thousand people?
Very few people can pay for homes, cars, and education out-of-pocket either...So what??
So we are the only industrial nation that has hundreds of thousands of people going bankrupt every year because of medical bills.
Only in America: Medical Bankruptcy & Homelessness - PNHP’s official Blog
Only in America: Medical Bankruptcy & Homelessness
Posted by DrSteveB on Thursday, Jul 2, 2009
I just returned from the annual conference of the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, where the link between medical bankruptcy and homelessness was made more clear than ever.
Which raises the question: Will the health reform we get end the “Only in America” phenomenon of medical bankruptcy? Just asking….
I am not usually the one to write about individual horror stories. I will have my usual statistics and facts later in this diary. But one speakerÂ’s story summed up so much of what is wrong Only in America.
Let me tell you the story of Joe Benson:
Mr. Joseph Benson (.pdf) is from Houston, Texas. When I met him for the first time last Wednesday he was wearing cowboy gear including the hat, which covered his long braided hair. He had a huge smile on his face and is a magnetic speaker; here is the story he told us: He was the first in his family to go to and complete college. After his BA, he went on and got professional chefÂ’s training, and worked his way up in that industry, working in various restaurants and becoming a head chef. He saved money, moved back to Houston to help care of his parents and start his own family. He built up a custom catering business, and was now the boss, employing 25 other people.
He had a wife and two children, and was putting money away for their college funds. He had health insurance and auto insurance and his own home.
Surely this was the living embodiment of the “Only in America” all-American dream.
However, one night, on the way home from a catering job, he had an automobile accident, running head on into a commercial flatbed truck. The other truck was parked and loading scrap from a junk yard, and was jutting out into the road without it lights or blinkers on.
He survived but was in the hospital for almost a year.
Did I mention that when I met him, in addition to the cowboy outfit and smile, he was in a wheelchair with no legs, both amputated high above the knee?
The medical bills quickly blew past what his insurance would cover. The owner and driver of the other truck did not have insurance, like 10-20% of vehicle owners despite the mandate to buy auto insurance, so Mr. Benson and his insurance company were unable to go after that source.
He lost his business.
His employees lost their jobs (and presumably their families suffered).
He and his family lost their house.
He and his family lost the kids college fund.
He lost his family.
When he was finally discharged from the hospital, it was to the street.