Sunday, October 25, 2009
This is capitalism: "Solving" the health care crisis
Over lunch today I turned on C-SPAN and watched some of a Senate hearing earlier this week on "Bankruptcy and Health Care." A professor testified that a whopping half of all bankruptcies declared by people over the age of 65 (people who are covered by Medicare!) are due to medical bills. And the "solution" to this problem being proposed in Congress? Provide a real, complete single-payer system that actually pays for all medical expenses? Oh no, it's "make it easier for people to declare bankruptcy." The fact that, as noted by several of those testifying, most of these cases involve chronic diseases, which means they will involve continuing payments which they still won't be able to pay even after declaring bankruptcy? We'll deal with that later. Or maybe we won't have to, if they're denied future care they can't pay for.
