Must read piece about health care: “I very much want to kill you Jon Schwarz”
by digby
Jon Schwarz has written a very personal piece today about a recent scary brush with serious illness and how it’s informed him about Obamacare:
[T]he reason it cost me nothing is because I have America’s best health insurance via my job with Dog Eat Dog Films, Michael Moore’s production company. He didn’t just make an entire documentary, SiCKO, about our disastrous healthcare system, he puts his money where his movie is. My coverage has no deductible, and most doctor’s visits have no co-pay. (The dental coverage is great too – I had three wisdom teeth removed for a total cost to me of $242.) I’ve never had insurance like this before in my life and probably never will again unless I move to Ontario.
So you can understand why I’ve been closely following the GOP’s attempts to defund Obamacare. I’m suddenly much more interested in everything about healthcare policy, in the same way you’re suddenly much more interested in the safety instructions in the seat back in front of you when the pilot announces you’re ditching in Lake Superior. And every time Ted Cruz has gone on TV, what I’ve heard him say is: “I very much want to kill you, Jon Schwarz.”
That’s because Obamacare requires insurance companies for the first time to cover everyone, regardless of any preexisting conditions. There’s no more disqualifying condition than cancer; without Obamacare, I would now almost certainly be uninsurable if someday in the future I try to get insurance on the individual market. And we know what happens to people without health insurance in the United States: they die.
He does not let Obamacare off the hook — he’s looking at it with eyes open, glitches and screw-ups and everything. But with all that he doesn’t miss the larger point:
… If I’d delayed because I had to pay, it easily could have ended up costing the system $500,000 worth of interferon, CT scans and radioimmunotherapy, plus the additional downside of me being dead. Multiply that by millions of people and you’ll understand why the right’s crusade against health insurance is more than just evil and cruel, it’s evil, cruel and incredibly stupid.
So we don’t have to just beat Ted Cruz so hard he flees back to Alberta. We have to get rid of the parts of Obamacare that may help the private insurance industry keep squeezing us like an anaconda. And we have to keep and improve the good parts, so the Affordable Care Act is just the first step to the only system that’s ever worked anywhere on earth: universal, high-quality health insurance and healthcare for everyone.
Yes.
Also too this:
And while we’re working on this, seriously – please please use lots of sunscreen and don’t skimp on dermatologist appointments.
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