How many people here personally know someone who was dropped from their healthcare or didn't get coverage for an illness? I always hear about the evil insurance companies and how they fight tooth and nail to not pay for your illnesses. Both of my in-laws had serious heart procedures that cost over $100,000 each and they barely paid a dime. That's pretty good. They've both pretty much used up more than they've put into it already. The problem with Obamacare is that it isn't health care reform, which is much needed. It's health insurance reform. It doesn't address the high cost of health care itself. If we can somehow bring down the insanely high cost of medical procedures, the cost of insurance will follow.
A week before my son was born, my wife switched from BCross of CA (20% co pay on everything) to Kaiser. I was self employed. That was 16 1/2 years ago. At the age of 51 weeks, he had 3 open heart surgeries, was in the ICU for 4 months, and has had quarterly check ups since then.
We estimate his total bill to be around $2million now. We never saw a bill. We never had to pay an extra dime, but did get normal premium raises.
In July 2010, we moved to Boise, where Idaho had a LAW on the books that pre existing could not be denied. (3 other states at time had this also). Our premiums for same coverage were actually a little lower in ID than CA, and I was nine months into a recovery also for a PE I had four years ago tomorrow.
My wife now works at Boise St and we've been covered for the first time in our lives by work the past two years.