Sometimes you have no choice.
If you are pregnant and your husband is forced into a job change, there’s not a lot you can do about it. It’s not always a matter of waiting until you’re pregnant and then shopping for insurance to pay for it.
I know you have no choice sometimes. I had several uninsured pregnancies!
And we are not well off, never were.
The first one I paid cash. I mean, we were working. At the teaching hospital you could pay like $200/ a month for a year and that was it. Prenatal labor delivery postpartum. That’s how it ought to be.
By the time number two came no one I mean no one would do that. They just kept saying get medi-cal. I did not want to. We both worked. But it was that or no health care after several weeks of looking. That is not my fault. That was the system in place. No cash.
So I got it and we qualified easily even thought we both worked. Had it for each child following. It’s quite a stupid thing.
My solution is to have the government out of health care except for reasonable regulation. And to require posting of prices. We are customers, especially those not having emergencies. For emergencies I think they should be required to take all regardless of ability to pay, but that those customers or their estates must pay or be considered debtors. And debt law to be enforced. I think they should be required in emergency care to set up payment plans.
And of course I believe private insurance companies should compete for our dollar freely.
I support a pool for those with truly congenital preexisting conditions for American citizens - approved problems such as downs or etc. even so the care should be competence and portable, caregivers to shop around.
I heartily support such organizations as St Judes and the hundreds of pregnancy centers (no medical ones around me at the time but they helped me a lot) who provide free care on a purely voluntary basis. Excellent.
My .02