Our Health Policy Matters

Imagine what a nightmare healthcare scenario might look like. You are diagnosed with a debilitating chronic disease while young.  At first, you can’t even work because of it, and you are dependent on a family member’s insurance to help pay your medical expenses.  Eventually, your disease goes into remission, and you find a job with health insurance.  You go off your family member’s plan.  But your employer goes bankrupt, and you’re left with no job and no insurance.  Then you get another chronic disease. You try the individual health insurance market, but the only insurance available to you comes from a high risk pool in which everyone else also has at least one chronic disease.  The price is outrageous, but you pay the bill as long as you can. Eventually, you can’t afford it, and you become uninsured for a few months.  You apply to your state’s Medicaid program for help.  You are denied because your state has already s...

Imagine what a nightmare healthcare scenario might look like. You are diagnosed with a debilitating chronic disease while young.  At first, you can’t even work because of it, and you are dependent on a family member’s insurance to help pay your medical expenses.  Eventually, your disease goes into remission, and you find a job with health insurance.  You go off your family member’s plan.  But your employer goes bankrupt, and you’re left with no job and no insurance.  Then you get another chronic disease. You try the individual health insurance market, but the only insurance available to you comes from a high risk pool in which everyone else also has at least one chronic disease.  The price is outrageous, but you pay the bill as long as you can. Eventually, you can’t afford it, and you become uninsured for a few months.  You apply to your state’s Medicaid program for help.  You are denied because your state has already s...