More thoughts on health insurance and health care reform.

Health care costs are sky high in America, so it seems to me that having good health becomes a much more valuable matter here than anywhere else. This fact rings very true every time I come across a story about how someone goes bankrupt because of medical reasons. When you fall ill, not only do you lose your ability to earn a living (hence you need disability benefits of some sort), you also get squeezed dry by soaring medical costs.

no medical insurance, no health care
Image from AmericanProgress.com

Besides all this, there is one other unfortunate statistic that needs to be reversed. That would be the number of lives that are lost due to the lack of accessible health care for American citizens. I’ve noticed a disturbing trend: more people are deferring medical treatment for life-threatening problems because they simply cannot afford health insurance or health care. The latest casualty in this predicament is a reality television star: Jennifer Lyons was a participant in the show Survivor, who battled breast cancer for five difficult years. I am a fan of the show, and was saddened by her passing. It is especially tragic to learn that she may have had a much better chance of survival, had she not deferred medical treatment due to having no insurance. Her words:

Asked why she delayed seeing a doctor, Lyon said, “I didn’t have insurance, which is a big part of it. And it really wasn’t changing much. But a year later, I felt another lump, and then I felt something under my armpit.”

There’s something wrong here, when people are putting their lives at great risk because they are unable to afford basic medical care. A simple check up may have saved her life. I just wish that somehow, someday, our government gets their act together on this soon. In the meantime, let’s stay as healthy as we can be.

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No Medical Insurance, No Health Care: The Roundup

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