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We are a solidly middle-class family of three. I am self-employed and cannot afford medical insurance. Mrs Chan works for our family business, which has no employee health insurance (too expensive). She and Baby Chan (whose birth I will likely be in debt for until I die) are covered under an old COBRA plan from my last day job, but when that's over we're all out in the cold, insurance-wise. (And Baby Chan's ob-gyn and maternity costs wouldn't have been covered by any private insurer anyway.) We make considerably more than $45,000 a year between us; even so, we have yet to find a health insurance plan that we can afford that will accept a family with a baby.

We do not live extravagantly. We own a solid, red-brick 1952 rambler of 1300 ft² that we are renovating little by little, which is located in a old center-city neighborhood. I have a BMW (a 1984 318i, 200,000 miles±) and she drives our Toyota (a 1995 4Runner, 195,000± miles), both paid for, with full-coverage insurance (a necessity in a state where the roads are full of unlicensed, unisured illegal alien drivers.) We have no dogs, no Tivo, no boat, and no plasma TV. We live frugally.

And we still can't afford health insurance.

Something's wrong. I'm not saying that Hillary is right, and I'm not claiming that the Frost family deserves government-sponsored health care — but when a hardworking, frugal middle-class family such as we cannot find affordable health insurance, something is wrong.

You haven’t given us enough information. What is your profession? Could you or your wife not get some kind of job with health insurance coverage through the employer? You really cannot expect other taxpayers to subsidize your desire to be your own boss. We all know people who plod on in jobs they don’t like, jobs that don’t have much in the way of opportunity. Maybe you have to take one of those that provides health insurance. Can’t you get a job at a Post Office? They have health insurance coverage and there are many Americans living on a Post Office salary.

“We are a solidly middle-class family of three. I am self-employed and cannot afford medical insurance. Mrs Chan works for our family business, which has no employee health insurance (too expensive).
...We do not live extravagantly. We own a solid, red-brick 1952 rambler of 1300 ft2 that we are renovating little by little, which is located in a old center-city neighborhood. I have a BMW (a 1984 318i, 200,000 miles±) and she drives our Toyota (a 1995 4Runner, 195,000± miles), both paid for, with full-coverage insurance ...We have no dogs, no Tivo, no boat, and no plasma TV. We live frugally.

And we still can’t afford health insurance.

Something’s wrong. I’m not saying that Hillary is right, and I’m not claiming that the Frost family deserves government-sponsored health care — but when a hardworking, frugal middle-class family such as we cannot find affordable health insurance, something is wrong.”

You are right BC. Doing everything you can, and not being super human... I think there are a number of things wrong
and certainly none of us wants gvmnt to step in.

We need to either eliminate health insurance and pay Docs the old fashioned way (with chickens and whiskey) , or create buyers pools/co-ops where people can associate for the sole reason of buying health insurance *ick* .

Also the pricing structure and tranparency MUST be easily available to patients.
How many here ask Doc how much a visit/exam/procedure costs?
Why would we when the Insurance pays for it ??

If Docs (sorry Docs ) had to compete for patients and not for insurance providers maybe things would become. reasonable ????

We are a solidly middle-class family of three. I am self-employed and cannot afford medical insurance.

Thank you for pointing this out. There is a lot of righteous indignation around here from those who obviously never have had to actually BUY private/individual health insurance.

Also, for those criticizing the family for sending the child to private school - the NYTImes reported this morning that the child had a scholarship.