LotD - Health Care Round-Up

Scary op-ed here about the effects of medical bills on people's marriages. I remember this kind of story being prevalent in the LTC market back when I worked for Very Big Insurance Company. Again, there's got to be a better way.

A study reported in The American Journal of Medicine this month found that 62 percent of American bankruptcies are linked to medical bills. These medical bankruptcies had increased nearly 50 percent in just six years. Astonishingly, 78 percent of these people actually had health insurance, but the gaps and inadequacies left them unprotected when they were hit by devastating bills.

I find this above fact just... wow. Mind-boggling. Given the subject of this op-ed, I wonder where are the "family values" reflected when a wife chooses to divorce her husband in order to save their future together?

I also found the dichotomy in this article about Senator DeMint from South Carolina. He's fighting against health care reform, spreading lies about what the bill actually says, and yet, the average rate of uninsured people in his state is higher than the national average.

The subject of health care in Mr. DeMint’s own state rarely comes up either. But South Carolina, much of which is poor and rural, faces some particular challenges. Its unemployment rate of 11.8 percent exceeds the national rate of 9.4 percent. And 16.2 percent of the population has no insurance, more than the national average of 15.3 percent.

Rather, voters seem more interested in whether Mr. DeMint might run for president.

Reminds me a lot of that book -- "What's the Matter with Kansas?" -- which had people voting emotionally on their anti-abortion stances to their own economic disadvantage.