Does health insurance stress you out? Feel insecure about medical care?
A recent study of bankruptcies discovered that over half were caused by medical costs breaking the back of family finances. 3 out of 4 of the families that went bust had insurance when their medical troubles started. Then they got sick, couldn’t work, lost their job and with it their insurance, and the medical bills piled up.
In our current system, health insurance is tied to employment. People keep jobs they hate and leave jobs they love for health insurance. Increasingly, what they get in return is paultry. With premiums, co-payments, and deductibles, the emergency room has become the primary care for too many people.
Our current system is stressful, insecure, and stupid.
Last Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Business page, of all places, carried an article by columnist Dan Lazarus discussing State Senator Sheila Kuehl’s single payer health insurance legislation.
If her legislation becomes law, it will provide universal coverage and save money. You’ll be able to get care when you need it. You won’t have to think about how you’re going to pay for it.
This will be good for your health in more than the obvious way.
Insecurity is a major stressor. Helplessness is a major stressor. As Layna has discussed so many times on this show, stress promotes illness and in some cases causes it outright.
Supporting Senator Kuehl’s single payer plan does you good in two ways. Corporations and government have colluded over the last 30 years to make jobs less secure. The Bush administration is currently doing all it can to make retirement less secure. Now we have opportunity to make health care more secure.
Supporting single payer also does you good by affirming that you are not helpless. You can do something. Like calling on your State Senator and Assembly Representative to support Senator Kuehl.
And while you’re at it, tell them you oppose the Universal Healthcare Act of 2005, a bipartisan brew concocted by Joe Nation (D – San Rafael) and Keith Richman (R – Granada Hills). This piece of work tinkers with the existing system to make insurance available to everyone, but the way it works is to require you to buy health insurance. If you don’t, they will take the premiums from you.
Brilliant. You can’t afford insurance? You get punished.
Is it just me, or is this a really stupid idea?
Senator Kuehl’s proposal is Senate Bill 921 – the California Health Insurance Reliability Act. Find out more on the Web at healthcareforall.org. Or call 888-442-4255.
Less stupidity. More security. Less stress. Better health.
