According to a Harvard Law School study, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Matrix Journal, 61.5 percent of personal bankruptcies and 48 percent of home mortgage foreclosures were directly or indirectly due to medical bills.
Public company records indicate insurance company profit increases averaged 58 percent during the pre-ACA years when they dropped coverage of the sick, denied coverage of pre-existing conditions and capped pay-outs despite patient needs.
It is public record that a freshman representative in Congress earns twice the average American income.The handbook of the Congressional Research Service describes their medical benefits: they must buy a “gold” plan, which pays 80 percent of costs, with no deductible; and 72 percent is paid for by their “employer” — the U.S. taxpayer.
According to the World Health Organization, 50 countries guarantee their citizens needed health care, regardless of ability to pay. Of 33 “developed” nations, America is the only one where people lost homes and a lifetime of hard-earned assets, before “Obamacare” put the brakes on. Insurance profits fell to 2 to 3 percent; CEO salaries were cut; pre-existing conditions were no longer excluded and treatment didn’t end when insurers stopped paying.
It is a disgrace that politicians lack the courage to cut out the for-profit industries that financially devastate the ill.
“Trumpcare” would have been an inhumane step back and Americans would have suffered. Foreclosure, bankruptcy, untreated illness — politics over people and power over compassion.
So much for “promoting the general welfare” and “securing the blessings of liberty.” To politicians, justice means “just us.”
Joanne D’Unger, Leeds
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