When you are a mom with a little kid whose only means on survival is to have a breathing tube up his nose and a feeding tube down his gut, you get to know the importance of a secure insurance coverage.
The Elliots are not underprivileged people. The husband works as a mechanical engineer in a contracting firm, and yet has to deal with medical debt. and its not just them, there are 46 million Americans who in one way or the other face some sort of medical crisis due to insufficient or non existent insurance coverage.
What’s surprising is that most of the people who do end up in medical debt are those who have already taken steps to ensure that they are medically insured. Only they failed to realize that the insurance that they paid for was just not good enough to kick in when they needed it most. Either it is too less, or it doesn’t cover the life threatening conditions that they face, and as a consequence some of them lost their jobs and some their lives.
Michelle and Kevin Thomas were successful newly weds who were trying to make it big, when all of a sudden they lost their jobs owing to the deteriorating economic situation. And out of shear misfortune, Michelle developed a severe gall bladder condition when she was not covered by an insurance policy. This was because her insurance was sponsored by the firm that she was working in. and the couple now have to pay $15,000 in medical bills.
Another heart wrenching story is of a man who fell off of a ladder. And he was all along living under the assumption that he had a coverage of up to $500,000 in medical bills. But when he went along to claim his bills, the insurance company denied it saying that he already had a pre existing condition. This was because he had already stated on the insurance application that he had undergone a surgery for a club foot condition when he was young. And the insurance company said that the complications that arose from the fall was due to that preexisting condition.
But all is not lost. The government is slowly realizing that there is a problem and change has to be made. Reform proposals in the congress could make a difference to the Elliot’s out there. If you lost your job, you could be eligible for a subsidy under new transition options. The Thomas’s are hoping that those changes will come fast. They sincerely hope and believe that no one has to go bankrupt paying for the medical care that they need.
If you find yourself with extremely high health insurance rates, you should compare health insurance quotes online to find out if you have the least expensive coverage available.