HW 30

I wasn't sure what I wanted to look into for the project. I ended up exploring this aspect of illness and dying that was focused on in the movie Sicko. How people that HAVE health insurance can be denied care, or deny to pay for some treatments.
This can even be deadly. For example in the movie Sicko Michael Moore talks to a woman who's daughter got a very high fever. The woman thought the fever was too high so she had to rush her daughter to the nearest emergency room. When she arrived at the emergency room the hospital told her that the insurance company had denied treatment for her daughter at this hospital. The mother begged for approval but was still denied. So they tried to transport her daughter to another hospital but it was too late her daughter died on the way. This caught my attention because I couldn't believe that they would deny someone care if they were about to die. The reason for this is that the main reason HMO's were created not to help people in need of care but to maximize profit. Therefore the healthcare companies will do whatever they can to find a reason to deny care for someone because they don't lose money if they don't pay to get someone care.
Another part that stood out to me in the movie Sicko was the parents that both had to move in with their children because they went bankrupt paying medical bills. This rung a bell in my head and reminded me that I had heard in school that the number one cause for bankruptcy in the U.S. was medical care bills. So I decided to look into this. I found that medical care expenses are the number one reason for bankruptcy in the U.S. "In 2007, medical problems contributed to 62.1 percent of all bankruptcies. Between 2001 and 2007, the proportion of all bankruptcies attributable to medical problems rose by about 50 percent", (Medical Bills Cause Most Bankruptcies, http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/medical-bills-cause-most-bankruptcies/). 62% of bankruptcies are caused by medical problems. This data was astonishing to me I didn't think it would be the reason for more than half of ALL bankruptcies. The study that gathered this information also stated that most of those people were well educated middle class people and 3/4 of them had health insurance. All of this information almost related exactly to Sicko and I found it sad that these people had jobs with health insurance and an education but yet they went bankrupt paying for their own medical care.
I was with Kevin when he found a homeless man and we interviewed him. It was a man who didn't seem like an average homeless person. Instantly the first thing we saw was that he had no legs. So we figured maybe we could ask him about it. Approaching a stranger about a personal topic like that was weird but we didn't want to pass on the chance. Surprisingly didn't mind telling his story. He got into a car accident the front of the car was pushed up and it crushed both of his legs. At the hospital had to have both of his legs amputated, which costed $80,000 per leg because he did have health insurance but his health insurance did not cover the surgeries. He had to do months of rehab. During this time he lost his job. When he recovered he didn't have a job and he was bankrupt.
This showed me that anyone could have medical problems and not have enough money to pay for it. This was no way this guys fault. It was an accident and he had a job that provided health insurance. So you would have thought that he was safe but everything went wrong and he is now bankrupt. This brought up the question in my head is it even possible to be sure that this wouldn't happen to you? I think that we should have universal healthcare in the U.S. so things like this can't happen to a good person that doesn't deserve this.