You Drive a BMW: Of Course You Have Health Insurance!

In an article from the New York Times titled, "Caught in the Middle, Without Health Insurance", it is strikingly apparent that the number of health insured citizens of the U S of A is dropping incredibly. No longer is it just the poorest of poor populations suffering; it is also the business men and women whom sport around in their pricey vehicles.

Open Door Family Medical Centers (found in parts of New York) were once dealing with poor people in high need of medical assistance. Now, as I stated above, they are filled to the brim with yes, the poor, but also middle class workers along with students just out of college, who are having a terrible time finding a job in the economy of today. According to the article, 7 percent of the US is out of work and 47 million are unable to afford any sort of health insurance. What scary, ginormous, eye opening statistics those are! That means roughly 7 out of 100 people are jobless, which makes me wonder; are children accounted for in those stats, or is just people of working age? I am going to assume it is based off of the 18+ population. After reading those numbers it makes me even more terrified to graduate from college. I have another year left in my undergraduate career, but I am not too optimistic that the economy will bounce back that quickly.

The middle class are getting hit harder and harder as our economy continues to fade. These people do not make enough money to shell out thousands of dollars for private health insurance, but make too much for Medicaid to be an option. The jobs they hold are having a hard time insuring them, so what other option do they have? One man mentioned in the article had to choose between his hypertension meds and his pills for Diabetes. He could not afford both. Truly saddening.

Another reason more and more people are using such places like Open Door is due to the lack of primary care physicians. Nowadays, medical students are going into a specialty knowing they will make more money pursuing that road. Along with this, is the fact that many primary care doctors are not seeing new patients, or their old patients that have had their health insurance dropped. As one woman said, the doctor would not see her unless she had the money in her hand the day of the appointment.

I knew the economy was horrible. I knew health insurance was a pain in the butt to try and get these days, but I had no idea just HOW bad it has gotten. The fact that people cannot afford all of their medications is troubling. The fact that many Lexus owners are no longer able to afford health insurance is awful. The fact that our nation is drowning in the deep end when it comes to our nation's health, and health coverage, is down right sickening.