Does Capitalism Inevitably Produce Inequalities?

[hunter]

77. We're actually quite well, but thank you.

Modern medicine works but it's very expensive here in the U.S.A., as is education. One thing I learned -- never pay medical bills with credit cards and be very aggressive with both medical insurance companies and medical providers. (Difficult to do when you are as sick as my wife was...)

When my wife's COBRA timed out we were both uninsurable... My wife had applied for our state's high risk insurance pool before that, she was still very ill, but there was a big gap before they started paying some of our bills. (I hope Obamacare has put an end to that nightmare.)

Because of late payments our credit card interest shot up past 20%, and then we were in a place where prescriptions were costing over a thousand dollars a month. One has to pay for those or risk death, and then the credit card interest compounds, and then they cancel all your credit and eventually settle.

I never expected to be in this weird place where the money flies in one window and out the other as if it's not our own, with occasional late mortgage payments a mortgage servicer is only too happy to carry because their late fees are so egregious.

My wife has her health again, and I think maybe we will get ahead, but damn, it would have been nice to live in a nation with some kind of national health plan. Random major illnesses and accidents can happen to anyone.

Even today I maybe don't see my doctor as often as I should because I owe him money and feel bad about it. He's been my doctor a long time however, so maybe he puts up with that. But he and I shouldn't have to fight insurance companies who make as much money denying appropriate medical care as they do inappropriate medical care.

The problem with health insurance companies in the U.S.A. is that their business isn't about appropriate health care; it's all about the size of the money stream they control.