Is "Obamacare" really the best idea? Thoughts on my idea?

[renie408]

42. I am not sure I either understand or agree with your premise

that insurance is ONLY for catastrophic events.

My husband got a tiny speck of metal in his eye about two years ago. After about 24 hours of having a painful watery eye that no amount of eyewash could get the speck out, I drove him to the doctor's office. He never even saw an actual doctor, the nurse took a big fat Q-tip with some ophthalmic ointment on it and dabbed it on the speck and out it came. Literally, he was back in the room for MAYBE fifteen minutes. And the bill?

$740.

Yep. I am not lying. They charged us $300 while we were there, which we almost fainted over and we got ANOTHER bill in the mail for another $440. For a Q-tip. I refused to pay the second amount and raised holy hell. After a few months of argument, they backed off the second bill. But not until they had sent to collections and we were harassed and threatened and treated like criminals.

Right now we are one of those families that makes more than $50,000 (barely) and don't have health coverage. Since both my husband and I are self-employed, we have no coverage through work unless we pay for it ourselves. The cheapest, crappiest policy we can get for all four of us runs $546 a month. And we just don't have it. My son is covered through insurance he gets from the college he attends and my daughter is covered under a state health initiative. My husband and I just keep our fingers crossed.