Health Care Stories: Sacramento, CA

Badtux tells us what the real solution is.


I'm not going to go into detail about my pre-existing conditions, but they make me uninsurable in the current individual market. Which is a problem, because I work in the high tech industry. And once you start getting gray hairs in the high tech industry, you're basically unemployable as a full-time employee qualified for group health insurance -- employers will only hire you as a "consultant" to straighten out projects that their youngsters have screwed up. Which is okay, you can make a good living at that especially if you know where all the skeletons in the industry are buried (as I do), except for one thing: I won't be able to get health insurance, meaning a 50% greater chance of dying if I have a serious illness according to all the statistics I've seen.

I personally think the "real" solution to our health care problems would be Medicare for All -- we already know Medicare works for old people (our old people are healthier than any other country's old people), there's no reason why it wouldn't work for everybody else too. But given this country's dysfunctional political system, that's not happening. At the very least the current HR3200 bill in the House solves my personal problem -- I'll be able to breathe easier during the 15 years between turning into a pumpkin and qualifying for Medicaid, because finally us old farts in our 50s and early 60s will have the ability to buy affordable individual insurance on the open market even if we have pre-existing conditions, and finally we'll qualify for Medicaid if we can't work because we're too sick to work (right now single males don't qualify for Medicaid no matter how little money they make). I just hope that our political system has not gotten so dysfunctional that even that modest reform can't make it through.


Badtux
Sacramento, CA


Check out Badtux's blog, Badtux the Snarky Penguin.