It is impossible for a person with a very expense health condition like Christmas Disease to be self employed or to work for a small start up company even if they are very well educated. There just are not enough bodies to spread the cost of $250,000 annual for factor replacement therapy around to in a company that does not employee thousands of workers. Given this most have to work for large companies or organization that can absorb these cost for a few years and even then the cost of premiums continually spirals upwards for everyone in the health insurance plan. The alternative is for that person not to make much of a living so that they can qualify for the States Medcaid program. Here too that person is faced with various challenges to optimal healthcare. The use of emergency rooms rather then a home healthcare company to provide nursing services.
Without a strong Public Option for the Chronically ill our fate will always be in someone else's hands. We will never be able to work where we want to and for whom we want to if the system remains the status quo. The current bill in the Senate allows insurance companies to charge a person with an expensive chronic illness three times the standard premium rate. How much would you have to make to turn over to the insurance company for this policy? Why should the cost of your health insurance exceed the cost of your mortgage? This bill will continue to lock the chronically ill out of the America dream. Why can't the riches nation on the planet look out for its fellow citizens that just happen to have at no fault of their own a chronic illness without forcing them to be bankrupt or live in poverty?
