Can’t happen to you? Think again…

Can’t happen to you? Think again…

Written by Ken_Sayer

What is wrong with “Employer Based Health” care and no “Government Option?” The fact that if one loses their job, they lose their health insurance and there is NO affordable option. For people suffering from heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or any number of serious health problems, could there be any other form of “rationing” that would be more malicious? With pre-existing conditions, they would be doomed. It is far cheaper to manage these conditions than to manage their crises.

When those fracking Republicans and so called “Blue Dog Democrats” speak of costs and socialism, they are just blowing smoke out of their, well, you know. It is time to take the demonstrations to their doors. Do they care about you? The following article, appearing in the Saturday edition of the N Y Times, explains what they have in store for you. Can’t happen to you? Think again… This is what happened to 63 year old Roberta Mason of Turner, ME.

“Laid off from her job as a supervisor in a shoe factory last January, Ms. Mason was able to keep her health insurance under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, known as Cobra, largely because of a federal subsidy that helped make her payments relatively affordable, at $199 a month.

But the subsidy, which was part pf President Obama’s stimulus package passed by Congress in February, lasts only nine months. And Ms. Mason’s time is up. In January, her Cobra payment will increase to $550, which is more than half of her $908 monthly unemployment check.

Her husband, Douglas, 66, is retired and receives about $1,900 a month in Social Security. His health care is covered by Medicare. But if Ms. Mason has to pay the full price on Cobra, she and her husband will have little left over from their two checks for living expenses.

‘For the past nine months I’ve been looking for another job,’ Ms. Mason said. But, at 63, ‘who will want to hire me, let alone give me a job that provides health benefits?’

Ms. Mason certainly needs the coverage. Her medications for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and chronic bronchitis would add up to hundreds of dollars a month without insurance. [snip]

AVOID A LAPSE when your subsidy ends, you won’t get a lot of notice. Most likely you will simply receive your next Cobra bill in the mail for a much larger amount than you are accustomed to paying.

If you do not, your Cobra coverage will end immediately. And then the clock immediately starts ticking on interruption of your health care coverage.

Under current law, if you have a gap in coverage of 63 days or longer, any insurance carrier from which you might then seek coverage could use any pre-existing health care issues you may have — like back spasms or heart disease — as a reason to deny coverage or charge astronomical premiums, far above even the expensive Cobra payments.”

This could ONLY happen in this country because every other civilized country in the western world has some form of a government option. Another thing that every other civilized country in the western world has that we do not is a LONGER LIFE EXPECTANCY and a LOWER INFANT MORTALITY. So tell the “Tea Baggers” to shove it and tell the Republicans and the Blue Dog Democrats to start doing their job of representing YOU instead of Big Pharma and the rest of those Healthcare Crooks. DEMAND THE PUBLIC OPTION.