Just a quick reminder, health care-related bankruptcy filings in America are expected to reach nearly 2 million this year as a result of unpaid medical bills.
60% of the bankruptcies in America are due to medical-related expenses, and here’s the kicker– three-quarters of them already have health insurance!
78 percent of them had health insurance, but many of them were bankrupted anyway because there were gaps in their coverage like co-payments and deductibles and uncovered services,” says Woolhandler. “Other people had private insurance but got so sick that they lost their job and lost their insurance.”
According to recent studies, “about 56 million adults— more than 20 percent of the population between the ages of 19 and 64— will still struggle with health-care-related bills this year.”
As a result of medical expenses 11 million Americans will take on more credit card debt. 15 million will blow through any savings they have. 10 million Americans will be left having to decide between food, rent, and medication as a result of their medical expenses.
Best healthcare system in the world!
Under the Affordable Care Act, if you have health insurance through your employer, your insurance has only gotten better, with new rights and protections that never existed before Obamacare came along. If you lose your job, or get fired because of that Obama/Biden 2012 bumper sticker on your car, you have a solid healthcare safety net to break your fall.
Under the Affordable Care Act, if you have garbage health insurance purchased on the individual market and you’re complaining about being dropped, this is just your health insurance provider covering its ass under the new regulations. Yours, too, incidentally.
And if you’re living in one of the 25 states that are still declining to expand Medicaid, under the Affordable Care Act, if you’re uninsured or purchase your policy individually, you have a 1-4 chance of qualifying for $0 policy, after subsidies and tax credits. Thanks, Obama.
So, Republicans and the mainstream press, by continuing to drive the debt-default/government shutdown getaway car for domestic terrorists and economic saboteurs simply want us to stop the bus to kick off the nearly 50 million Americans who have been uninsured, or historically under-insured, so they can return at once to the glory days of unobstructed market malpractice.
With such a small number of people being “forced” into better policies with no existing cap, or about 3% of the market, if that, Republicans would, of course, much rather the debate focus on the law’s anecdotal shortcomings, while Republican-controlled legislatures throughout the 25 states that are currently denying access to any healthcare for nearly 5 million Americans make their convenient getaway through the media smokescreen.
Republicans will save the shitty, unregulated health insurance policies of the few to utterly decimate millions and millions of Americans.
It’s a testament to the unearned trust and power of Right wing media’s influence over the narrative that we’re not talking about the millions and millions of people they are continuing to punish because some dude living in Bad Old Days America is upset because they have no idea how Obamacare helps them.
Ignorance is the playground of conservative Republicans. Poverty, unnecessary death, waste and fraud, especially where our healthcare system is concerned, are the tinker toys of monsters. It’s long passed time these sadists are put on the defensive. The meek will only inherit the Earth after we’ve kicked these bastards in the teeth.