[Nyororin]

Originally Posted by clintjm

Like others here, you speak to the point that you don't know of anyone personally with medical bills in the entire country of Japan, as if it makes it a fact that anyone is in this situation. However you speak in your first paragraph of Cancer treatment bills adding up. And this is the heart of the issues in the US, people going bankrupt because of a "medical disaster" such as Cancer.

You seem not to notice that there is a difference between bills adding up (not being "free") and going bankrupt because you can`t afford to pay them. There is a HUGE difference. Not being able to go on that planned family vacation or even to replace old clothes and furniture, is a lot different than having to sell your car and house to be able to continue receiving care. "My medications are expensive!" is different from "I can only afford my medications if I don`t eat this week..."

There are some instances where insurance companies drop a person who has been paying their premium but didn't disclose a previous condition or drops them for some reason. Make no mistake this dropping someone on a whim is something that was wrong and something that this Bill does fix.

When it comes to US health care I can only comment on my own family. I do not know what the rest of the country is doing, and what the rest of the country is going through.
I do know that my grandmother was dropped from her insurance after paying for 40 some years because she had smoked back during the war, and there was a possibility that the lung condition that she develop about a month before her death (and that killed her) was an undetected previous condition. It invalidated those 40 some years of continual payments with no major use. That month after she collapsed and was in the hospital had to be paid out of pocket because - according to the insurance company - chances are the condition was caused by her few years of smoking and factory exposure back in the 40s (she built military planes). I don`t see this as "dropping someone who didn`t disclose a previous condition".
I have a bone condition that requires supplements and monitoring. I was born with this, and have always had it. It was detected about 2 years after I was born when my first teeth starting rotting away at an abnormal pace due to a calcium processing and tooth enamel side effect. I was dropped from the dental plan as soon as the condition was detected because while the dental plan kicked in with the first tooth, the condition existed before that. "Undisclosed" apparently.

You mention life style changes: If the family in question didn't have a policy to take care of such a disaster because they couldn't afford it, why would they have be mortgaging house(s) to begin with? If a person had a policy and it was canceled illegally, it could be fought in the courts, though that is also a timely and expensive process.

No, they had an emergency policy that covered to $500,000 a year. Doesn`t help much when your child requires care in excess of $2,000,000 in one year. There was nothing illegally cancelled (although the insurance company tried to get out of paying it in any possible way). They just weren`t covered beyond $500,000 a year. After they hit the limit, there was nothing until next year. I seem to recall hearing that they were dropped the following year for excessive use, but I didn`t have much contact with them after that.

I hate the excuse that "Well, they shouldn`t have been buying a house anyway if they couldn`t afford a medical emergency." It simply doesn`t apply to most situations. It`s like saying "Well, you shouldn`t have gotten sick then, huh!"