Guaranteed Healthcare

I am fortunate enough not to have a horrific story that we hear so often. I am a permanent resident of the US. I am from the Czech Republic which, like any European country, has universal care. Until I came here and faced the difficulties, I never heard of the troubled healthcare of the richest country! I, as all, believed that the US is perfect and since it is so prosperous I naturally counted on meeting with even a better system than in the Czech Republic.

I have lived here for over 10 years, out of which I was insured for 5. I work in the gastronomic industry so health insurance is naturally not offered. Scared by the thought of causing a huge debt, should something tragic happen, I enrolled with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and got their basic plan. I paid for it for 5 years, and each year the premium kept leaping higher. Eventually I had to increase the deductible. The following year, the cost of my plan went up yet again and I gave up.

Thank God I didn't have to visit a doctor more than twice, but both times I had to pay everything anyway. So what was the point anymore? I was fed up and cancelled my policy. That was in the summer of 2006. Since then I have had no insurance. When I travel home to the Czech Republic I do my dental and gynecological checkups there and hope against hope that nothing will ever happen to me so I would have to go to a doctor in the US.

It is a shame, it is a disgrace that the social system in this privileged country is so poor and people have to sell their houses and go bankrupt because they are ill! Healhtcare in the US is just another business. Insurance companies and doctors feed of the misfortune of the sick. I imagine that if one wants to become a doctor, he/she wants to heal, help in the first place and not because they want to be rich. Mmm, the sight of the gilded skyscraper of Humana in Louisville, KY appears in my mind everytime I hear a sad story.