July 2, 2008 
I will give credit to the Health Care Reform Now blog for leading me to this article in The Indianapolis Star, but I think it is a sad reality.
“More and more of the middle class is finding out that even if they have jobs and insurance, they can be wiped out by medical events that are not even catastrophic,” says Dr. Christopher Stack, a retired orthopedist and co-founder of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan, the state’s chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. “You can run up a high five-figure bill real easily.”
A Harvard study published in 2005 estimated that about half of all bankruptcies filed in the U.S. have their origins in medical costs, a ratio that jibes with Silver’s and other bankruptcy veterans’ observations here in Indianapolis. While the rest of the world’s industrialized nations provide health coverage to all or nearly all of their populations, the U.S. mass-produces the distinctly American phenomenon of medical bankruptcies.
I am not a big fan of the donut hole in Medicare, but perhaps we need a donut hole type concept for health insurance where people have a maximum out-of-pocket in any one year. Although I am sure that would beg the question of what was optional versus required surgeries and treatments. It just seems a shame that we can bankruptcy hard working people with insurance over their medical bills.
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
This should make it clear that, contrary to the popular belief that you seem to believe in and promote, the picture of a benevolent health care system in the U.S. is a fantasy. Health care delivery in this country is every thing but a benevolent institution. They want our money. Very little of the health care industry is focused on research or development of low cost affordable medical treatment. And the reason is obvious—there’s no money in it. For people whose health is at risk, they know they have them over a barrel and they go for the jugular! They have no problem leaving people in need with the decision of either selling all their possessions, going bankrupt or dying. Tons of people in the U.S. spend money on health insurance, but it’s often inadequate to cover medical costs because health care providers don’t answer to insurers in terms of what they want to charge. Providers charge as much as they think they can get. The health care delivery institution in the U.S. is expert at keeping the focus on individual treatment needs and not on the societal damage and havoc it creates. It amazes me how well the medical care delivery PR machine in the country keeps people in denial about its true nature. And the proof of this is your own bias in wanting to point the finger at Medicare and insurance for their deficiencies, before saying to the doctor or hospital—hey, why is this so expensive? As much as you want to blame the insurance, it is not a failure of insurance.