When You Can't Afford Health Insurance

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So often, our views on an issue change when we are personally affected or exposed.  When this occurs, I believe it reveals hypocrisy on our part.  Shouldn’t our points of view be the same whether we are affected or not?  Of course, it should be but we all know that this is not the case.

Here’s a stark example illustrating my point.  Many of us support a policy prohibiting paying ransom for hostages.  Doing so, we argue, only encourages the taking of future hostages.  However, might our intellectual view on this issue be different if one of our loved ones was taken hostage?  I suspect that it would be. 

I could have cited ransomware as another example.  It’s easier to advise a business not to pay the criminals to restore its data and functionality from a safe perch. 

There are still millions of people here in America without health insurance.  I suspect that most folks out there with medical insurance who are busy with life, don’t ponder this issue often.  I understand this.  Because of the work I do, I confront this issue more often such as when I am seeing a self-pay patient.  But I admit that this important and sad societal defect does not usually occupy prime real estate in my crowded brain. 

Lessons from a Lyft Driver

A few days before penning this post, a week prior to the 2024 election, I was on holiday and used a Lyft car for transportation.  (Remember, when we used to rent a car when we traveled?) The driver was chatty and engaged me in a conversation about politics and other aspects of American life.  Lyft drivers are not employees but serve as private contractors. No benefits are provided. His driving supports 5 family members.  He cannot afford medical insurance.  An emergency room visit for back pain resulted in a $10,000 charge. 

He couldn’t understand why anyone in America should lack health insurance coverage.  I can’t either.  It’s a moral wound that continues to fester.   Despite all of the explanations explaining this reality, this shouldn’t be the case and this failure should have been remedied decades ago.  Health care is a human right.

I was hearing about this issue from the back seat directly from a man who was suffering from this injustice. I was not reading a news article or listening to pundit discuss the issue in an antiseptic manner.  Before me was real person who was suffering. To those, who are willing to tolerate the existence of the medically uninsured, would they be less tolerant if they or their families were in this situation?