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"Private health insurance doesn't work. Even middle-class families with supposedly good coverage are just one serious illness away from financial ruin. Illness and medical bills contribute to 62 percent of personal bankruptcies - a 50 percent increase since 2001. And three-quarters of the medically bankrupt had insurance, at least when they first got sick."
Coverage bought in good faith often fails because it's beset by co-payments, deductibles, and loopholes denying situations that arise. For others, lost jobs end coverage at a time those still having it pay more and get less.
"Now Congress plans to make it a federal offense not to purchase such faulty insurance." It may also do the following:
-- tax workers' health benefits to meet the cost of covering the poor and provide more revenue for insurers;
-- drain funds from hospitals serving the neediest in deference to the large chains;
-- rely on unenforceable promises from hospitals, insurers, Big PhRMA, and the AMA to control costs; and
-- generate savings by computerizing medical records for more centralized control and better management, an idea the Congressional Budget Office says won't work.
Obama's "health plan can't make universal, comprehensive coverage affordable," something only universal single-payer can do and at an annual saving of about $400 billion now and much more later on - "enough to cover the uninsured and to upgrade coverage for all Americans" equitably.
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