Health Care Dilemma

It is interesting to find that 20% of Americans are paid well enough in their jobs to hold 50% of all of the income in this country. The rest of us share what's left. I heard this on the CBS Morning show.

I believe there has not been a time, in my lifetime, where there has been such a large gap in the wealth and poor. I am a highly educated smart individual who hasn't been able to find steady work in my chosen profession for many years. It's always been that way in the Arts, but there has never been a time in my life where I find myself constantly worried about affording health care for me, my wife, and possible future children.

Right now I pay about $150 a month thru my employer (at a job I absolutely hate) for just myself. I can't sign up my wife because, unknown to me via not reading the fine print in my policy rules, you have to do so within 30 days of marrying. I missed that window, but you know what I couldn't afford the additional cost, close to $400 a month. THIS is thru my employer. God forbid I would have to pay for the whole thing myself.

Now...this wonderful health care plan I have thru my employer has a $4000 deductible if I ever need ANY type of hospitalization. If I had the family plan which is for anyone from 2 people (husband and wife) and how ever many children we have, which is none right now and may always be none because of costs, this deductible changes to $8000.

I PAY for this crap!!!! I can't drop this horrible, horrible job with a 60 mile each way commute because I have healthcare. Now, it will even be harder as the state I live in now requires me to pay for healthcare or suffer a fine.

I'm hoping things will change for me soon. I'm working hard trying to develop my own business so I can finally do something that I somewhat like to do.

I'm looking forward to seeing Michael Moore's movie "Sicko". I hope it has a dramatic effect on the attention this issue will get. It is a broken, broken system and has been for some time. Nothing has changed in way too long.