Check out this older article by Adam Gopnick and Malcolm Gladwell. It's a very, very interesting read about health care.
I find it interesting mostly because one of the things my sister and I have both had to deal with (her more recently than I, but not by much) is the purchase of individual health insurance. Me, because my COBRA benefits ran out, and Katie because she quit her job to go back to graduate school.
What you are essentially looking at here is two very privileged young women who can afford to pay for health insurance out of our own pockets, because of some very generous family members, including parents and grandparents. I only could afford my COBRA benefits because of family help; without it, I would have been insurance-less. As so many of my peers are unable to purchase insurance if they're doing unusual non-insured jobs, or going to graduate school, or working two part-time jobs to make ends meet.
I'm very unhappy with the state of medicine in this country, only not in the sense that medicine itself isn't working, but the way we're working it isn't working. Too many damn people can't afford any care at all. Too many people can't get small illnesses taken care of because they can't afford the drugs or the doctor visit. It's sort of a pivotal issue for me, and I think both parties in Washington haven't done enough to make this work better. I could reasonably be expected to vote for any candidate who promises to work hard on this, to make people's lives better, to make so that my REQUIRED yearly visit to the ob/gyn wasn't looked at as a "specialist" and thus subject to higher bills. We need change.
Update: Interesting how things change. Gopnick and Gladwell wrote that debate six years ago. This morning, on Malcolm Gladwell's blog (that I only just found this morning), the man himself wrote that he pretty much agrees with Gopnick now. Funny how six years and a bad presidency or two can change how you feel about things.
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