Health Care Reform Is About Choices

Some people would rather keep things as they are.

Some people would rather live in an America with a health care system ranked 37th in the world.

Some people would rather America spend twice as much in GDP per capita for health care than industrialized countries with national systems.

Some people would rather not quit jobs they hate - or start their own businesses - because they will lose their group coverage and preexisting conditions will prevent them from getting affordable coverage.

Some people would rather pay punishing premiums, only to find that after their first serious illness, their plans don't cover what they thought, leaving them with mountains of debt.

Some people would rather spend days, weeks or months struggling through a passive-aggressive claims process, trying to make for-profit insurers deliver benefits they've paid for for years.

Some people would rather wade through stacks of paperwork after a hospital stay or the death of a loved one: medical bills they're not sure they can pay from providers they never met, claims filed with insurance companies, and rejection letters denying them.

Some people would rather take the risk that their families won’t be among the sixty-two percent of Americans who file bankruptcy as a result of medical expenses, even though nearly eighty percent of those have health insurance.

These are legitimate choices.

Some people would rather pay more and get less.

I’m just not one of those people.

Views expressed on this page are those of the authors and not necessarily those of Campaign for America's Future or Institute for America's Future