[BITList] US healthcare

[x50type at cox.net]

This is the real world of US healthcare!
but republicans favour it – healthcare for all citizens is “socialism”, they claim.
[as if sickness and ill health is an individual choice.]
only the rich need healthcare,
ct 

      For Uninsured in Texas, Supreme Court Ruling Adds to Uncertainty
       
      Michael Stravato for The New York Times
      Luis Duran, a crane operator, and his wife, Carmen, struggled after he lost his health insurance because of a paperwork oversight and then learned he had cancer.

      By MANNY FERNANDEZ
      Published: June 29, 2012
      PASADENA, Tex. — In an ordinary world, Josh Hebert would have accepted the raises his employer offered.

      But in the extraordinary world of the uninsured, he has not only turned down the pay increases at the bank where he works, but has twice asked for a pay cut — so that he and his wife’s ill 7-year-old daughter can qualify for government-sponsored children’s health insurance.

      By keeping his income low, he and his wife, Kyla, are able to ensure that their daughter continues to have health coverage. The parents remain uninsured themselves, like thousands of others in this working-class refinery town outside Houston. Thirty-three percent of the population here lacks medical insurance.

      Nearby in Houston, hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday upheld the core provisions of President Obama’s health care overhaul, Luis Duran hardly paid attention. He and his wife sifted through medical documents stuffed in a paper bag, evidence of his ordeal to survive cancer without health insurance.

      A crane operator, Mr. Duran had been covered for years through his employer, but a simple paperwork oversight left him uninsured last year. Months later, he learned he had colon cancer, and spent roughly $7,000 on a colonoscopy and surgery — a reduced rate — using money he received from relatives and from selling some of his and his wife’s jewelry, including a 14-karat gold medallion of Jesus Christ.

      “When you don’t have insurance, nobody listens to you,” said Mr. Duran, 51, who had been making about $50,000 annually but is now on disability. “It’s a powerless feeling. You feel like you’re an outcast. You feel that you’re homeless without insurance.”

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