Why Are People with Health Insurance Going Bankrupt?

[Half-Century Man]

20. Silly Question

People with insurance go bankrupt because it is designed to happen. As long as you pay on time and don't need any of the "benefits" you are a model customer. When you have the effrontery to submit a claim, you having become a liability instead of an asset. An extremely rude choice made by the policyholder; the equivalent to backing up to the head table at their corporate dinner party to fart loudly and giggle. Such rude behavior on the policyholder part, allows rude payback on the part of the company.

I contracted Precursor T-cell leukemia/lymphoma most probably due to benzine exposure. I spent 365 days treating and recovering from the treatment of the cancer. It was declared "in remission"in only 6 months, but chemotherapy and radiation treatment have a well deserved brutal reputation. I returned to work on the very last day before I would have been tossed aside as corporate waste. I worked for A***a for the next seven years until they closed our plant.
12 manufacturing centers in a 50 mile radius closed within an 18 months span. A few thousand skilled workers hit the job market at the same time. I, as a fifty year old with a history of cancer, was not picked up for any of the few jobs there were. Within the three years I was unemployed my health deteriorated (my oncologist had told me I would age prematurely, the equivalent of a quick 15+ years). I was assessed to being physically disabled 8 months ago.

I am unable to get any insurance, even burial insurance through AARP. We lost our home, we lost the majority of our possessions. My adjusted gross income this year (2012) was - $287 (negative $287). We have to hit a food pantry a week on top of food stamps to eat. Because we get overdrawn every month, a significant portion of my disability is lost. The only reason we have a roof is because of section 8 assistance (thankfully we qualified before the sequester, there is no more for the next people through the meat grinder of our economy). Two out of five members of my family have no insurance, nor the chance of getting a job which has benefits. There are some part time jobs for those just starting out. however....

I know that a health system which values anything over serving patients is in direct violation of the Hippocratic oath (yeah, only doctors swear that oath..I ask, is that enough? Doctors are not the only persons in health care). I fail to understand why survival requires everything you have. I fail to understand the 'one strike and you're out" policy when it comes to insurance.

How dare they call the system we have Health care; It is, in fact, Health ambivalence.